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THE STAG AT THE POOL

BY ESOP

NE hot day a stag came to a spring to drink.

He saw his shadow reflected in the water, and greatly admired the size and beauty of his horns. But he felt ashamed of his feet; they were slender and weak.

While he was looking at himself, a lion suddenly 5 appeared. The stag immediately fled, with the lion in pursuit. As long as the ground was level and open, the stag easily distanced his pursuer.

But a wood lay ahead. Into this the deer plunged, and at once his horns became entangled in the bushes. 10 The lion quickly came up and found his game already trapped.

Then the stag reproached himself in these words: "Woe is me! How I have deceived myself! These feet, which would have saved me, I despised. I gloried 15 in my antlers, and they have led me to destruction."

Moral: What is most truly valuable is often underrated.

1. What other story of Æsop have you read? Who was Æsop?

THE BUSY WORLD

We are all interested in learning how things are done in the world, and how other people help us to live. Such knowledge helps us to find out what our own work should be. Better still it causes us to look upon everybody as a part of a big family working for each other's comforts.

OUR HELPERS

BY CHARLES J. BARNES

ATHER,” said John, as they were sitting down

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to breakfast, "I wish we had as many men to work for us as Mr. Rice has to work for him. He has six men mowing this morning. We don't have anys one to help us."

"Oh, yes, we do, John. We have many more than six men helping us. It took - let me see it took at least a hundred persons to help get our breakfast." "Why, father, you must be joking. Maggie got it to all alone. No one helped her."

"Let us see," said his father. "Your mother has a cup of tea this morning, and I have a cup of coffee. Do you know how the tea came here?"

"You bought it," said John.

15 "Yes, I bought it at Mr. Gray's store, but where did he get it? He did not raise it from the seed, and it did not grow in this country."

"I know that," said John. "Tea comes from China." "How many persons do you think it took to get 20 that cup of tea for your mother?"

"Two. You bought it, and Maggie made it."

"But somebody in China planted the seeds. Then

the leaves had to be picked off, and dried, and packed into chests, and carried to the ship that was to take the tea to this country.

"Then the ship, which it took a great many men to build, brought the tea here. But the ship could not s come without sailors, so we must count them as having helped us.

"Other men took the tea from the ship to a store in the city. Then Mr. Gray, the storekeeper, bought a chest of it, and sent it to his store by express. I 10 bought it of him, and Maggie boiled the water, and steeped it.

"But Maggie couldn't have given it to your mother, as she now has it, if we had not had a stove, a teapot, and cups and saucers. A great many men must have is

worked to supply us with these."

"And the spoons, and the sugar for the tea," said John. "Will you please to give me a small piece of steak and a slice of bread?"

"Yes," said his father; "if you will tell me how many 20 people helped to get them for you."

"Oh, I can't tell," said John; "I believe now it took a thousand men to get us a breakfast. I am sure

it took a hundred for a cup of tea, and that is the smallest part of a breakfast. I never thought that other 25 people did so much for us.”

1. List the people who helped you get your dinner to-day. How are the industries pictured on page 208 connected with your dinner?