But the best of it all was the wheel outside, and the busy rush of the water that made it go.

So Willie would now make a water-wheel.
[Illustration: WILLIE IS TAKEN TO SEE A WATER-WHEEL.] The carpenter having given him a short lecture on the different kinds of water-wheels, he decided on an undershot, and with Sandy's help proceeded to construct it--with its nave of mahogany, its spokes of birch, its floats of deal, and its axle of stout iron-wire, which, as the friction would not be great, was to run in gudgeon-blocks of some hard wood, well oiled.

These blocks were fixed in a frame so devised that, with the help of a few stones to support it, the wheel might be set going in any small stream.
There were many tiny brooks running into the river, and they fixed upon one of them which issued from the rising ground at the back of the village: just where it began to run merrily down the hill, they constructed in its channel a stonebed for the water-wheel--not by any means for it to go to sleep in! It went delightfully, and we shall hear more of it by and by.

For the present, I have only to confess that, after a few days, Willie got tired of it--and small blame to him, for it was of no earthly use beyond amusement, and that which can only amuse can never amuse long.

I think the reason children get tired of their toys so soon is just that it is against human nature to be really interested in what is of no use.