LESSON LII.

THE STORY OF SHALLOW, SELFISH, AND WISE.

ONCE, there were three boys, going into town, to buy some playthings: their names were Shallow, Sélfish, and Wisc. Each had half a dollar. Shallow carried his in his hand, tossing it up in the air and càtching it, as he went along. Selfish | kept teasing his mother to give him some more money: half a dollar, he said, was not enough. Wise | walked along quietly, with his cash safe in his pocket.

Presently, Shallow missed catching his half dollar, and-chink-it went, on the side-walk; and it rolled downward, into a crack under a building. Then he began to cry. Selfish | stood by, holding his own money tight in his hands, and said he did not pity Shallow, at all; it was good enough for him; he had no business to be tossing it up. Wise came up, and tried to get the money out with a stick, but he could not. He told Shallow not to cry; said he was sorry he had lost his money, and that he would give him half of his, as soon as they could get it changed at the shop.

So they walked along to the toy-shop.

Their mother said that each one might

choose his own plaything; so they began to look around on the counter and shelves.

After a while, Shallow began to laugh | very loud and heartily, at something he found. It was an image of a grinning monkey. It looked very droll indeed. Shallow | asked Wise to come and see. Wise | laughed at it, too, but said he should not want to buy it, as he thought he should soon get tired of laughing at anything, if it was ever so droll.

Shallow was sure that he should never get tired of laughing at so very droll a thing, as the grinning monkey; and he decided to buy it, if Wise would give him half of his money; and so Wise did.

Selfish | found a ràttle, a làrge, nóisy ràttle, and kept springing it, until they were all tired of hearing the noise.

"I think I shall buy this," said he. "I can make believe that there is a fire, and can run about springing my rattle, and crying, 'Fire! Fire!' or I can play that a thief is breaking into a store, and can spring my rattle at him, and call out, Stop thief."

"But that will disturb all the people in the house," said Wise.

"What care I for that?" said Selfish.

Selfish found that the price of his rattle was not so much as the half-dollar; so he laid out the rest of it in cake, and sat down on a box, and began to eat it.

Wise passed by all the images and gaudy toys, fit only to be looked at a few times, and chose a soft ball; and finding that that did not take all of his half of the money, he purchased a little morocco box containing an inkstand, some wàfers, and one or two short pèns.— Shallow told him that was not a plàything; it was only fit for a school; and as to his ball, he did not think much of thất.

Wise said he thought they could all play with the ball, a great many times; and he thought, too, that he should like his little inkstand, on rainy days and winter evenings.

So the boys walked homeward. Shallow | stopped, every moment, to laugh at his monkey, and Selfish to spring his ràttle; and they looked with contempt | on Wise's ball, which he carried quietly | in óne hand, and his box | done up in brown paper, in the other.

When they got home, Shallow | ran in, to show his monkey. The people smiled a little, but did not take much notice of it; and, in fact,

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it did not look half so funny, even to himself, as it did in the shop. In a short time, it did not make him laugh at all, and then he was véxed and angry with it. He said he meant to go and throw the ugly old baboon | away; he was tired of seeing that same old grin on his face all the time. So he went | and threw it over the wall.

Selfish eat his cake up, on his way home. He would not give his brothers any, for he said they had had their money | as well as he. When he got home, he went about the house, through parlour and chamber, kitchen and shed, springing his rattle, and calling out, "Stop thief! STOP THIEF!" or "Fire! FIRE!" Everybody got tired, and asked him to be still; but he did not mind, until at last, his father took his rattle away from him, and put it up on a high shelf.

Then Selfish and Shallow | went out, and found Wise playing beautifully with his ball, in the yard; and he invited them to play with him. They would toss it up against the wall, and learn to catch it when it came down; and then they made some bat-sticks, and knocked it back and forth to one another, about the yard. The more they played with the ball, the more they liked it; and, as Wise was

always very careful not to play near any holes, and to put it away safely, when he had done with it, he kept it a long time; and it gave them pleasure, a great many times, all summer long

And then his inkstand-box | was a great treasure. He would take it out, in the long winter evenings, and lend Selfish and Shallow each, one of his pèns; and they would all sit at the table, and make pictures, and write little letters, and seal them with small bits of the wafers. In fact, Wise kept his inkstand-box safe, till he grew up to be a man.

LESSON LIII.

VERSES FOR MORNING.

SEE the shining dewdrops,
On the blossoms strewed;
Proving, as they sparkle,
"GOD is ever good."

See the morning sunbeams
Lighting up the wood,

Silently proclaiming

"GOD is ever good."

Hear the mountain streamlet,
In the solitude,