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By W. H. Hudson
Illustrated by A. D. M'Cormick
Some like to be one thing, some another. There is so much to be done,so many different things to do, so many trades! Shepherds, soldiers,sailors, ploughmen, carters—one could go on all day naming withoutgetting to the end of them. For myself, boy and man, I have beenmany things, working for a living, and sometimes doing things justfor pleasure; but somehow, whatever I did, it never seemed quite theright and proper thing to do—it never quite satisfied me. I alwayswanted to do something else—I wanted to be a carpenter. It seemedto me that to stand among wood-shavings and sawdust, making thingsat a bench with bright beautiful tools out of nice-smelling wood,was the cleanest, healthiest, prettiest work that any man can do.Now all this has nothing, or very little, to do with my story: Ionly spoke of it because I had to begin somehow, and it struck methat I would make a start that way. And for another reason, too.His father was a carpenter. I mean Martin's father—Martin, theLittle Boy Lost. His father's name was John, and he was a very goodman and a good carpenter, and he loved to do his carpentering betterthan anything else; in fact as much as I should have loved it if Ihad been taught that trade. He lived in a seaside town, namedSouthampton, where there is a great harbour, where he saw greatships coming and going to and from all parts of the world. Now, nostrong, brave man can live in a place like that, seeing the shipsand often talking to the people who voyaged in them about thedistant lands where they had been, without wishing to go and seethose distant countries for himself. When it is winter in England,and it rains and rains, and the east wind blows, and it is grey andcold and the trees are bare, who does not think how nice it would beto fly away like the summer birds to some distant country where thesky is always blue and the sun shines bright and warm every day? Andso it came to pass that John, at last, when he was an old man, soldhis shop, and went abroad. They went to a country many thousands ofmiles away—for you must know that Mrs. John went too; and when thesea voyage ended, they travelled many days and weeks in a wagonuntil they came to the place where they wanted to live; and there,in that lonely country, they built a house, and made a garden, andplanted an orchard. It was a desert, and they had no neighbours, butthey were