Except Hector Macallaster, the Doctor was almost his only creditor.

Medicine and shoes were his chief trials: he kept on paying for the latter, but the debt for the former went on accumulating.
Hence it came that when Willie began to haunt his shop, though he had hardly a single smile to give the little fellow, he was more than pleased;--gave him odds and ends of wood; lent him whatever tools he wanted except the adze--that he would not let him touch; would drop him a hint now and then as to the use of them; would any moment stop his own work to attend to a difficulty the boy found himself in; and, in short, paid him far more attention than he would have thought required of him if Willie had been his apprentice.
From the moment he entered the workshop, Willie could hardly keep his hands off the tools.

The very shape of them, as they lay on the bench or hung on the wall, seemed to say over and over, "Come, use me; come, use me." They looked waiting, and hungry for work.

They wanted stuff to shape and fashion into things, and join into other things.

They wanted to make bigger tools than themselves--for ploughing the earth, for carrying the harvest, or for some one or other of ten thousand services to be rendered in the house or in the fields.