Now, this can only happen
by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You
are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw
you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. You do not
very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much merely because
it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of
uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to
you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit.
It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can
keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get
out after they are in.
You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall
go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for
it. Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home, prepare
for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money
wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to
secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that for
every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your
own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give
you one other dollar.
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