Are you not glad that the poor little baby was saved in the tree? If the cradle had fallen to the ground, you know, the little one might have been killed. Was it not a good thing that the men heard the baby cry?
|Henry, the basket-maker, is sitting at the door of his house. He is now nearly sixty years of age. With Fido his dog, and Lucy his granddaughter, he goes from place to place and gets work. Lucy finds it very tiresome to go every day with her grandfather, but Fido is very fond of going.
The old man has not seen the sun, or his own face, or the trees, or anything at all, for more than twenty years. He does not know what Lucy looks like. He only runs his fingers through her golden ringlets and calls her his Sunshine.
He can make a basket in one morning. He makes it of willow branches that are of several colors. How does he do that? Why, Lucy puts all the willow that is of the same color in one pile, and then tells him. He says Lucy is his eye. Lucy would rather play than sort willow.
If Fido could only be taught to know colors, would it not be nice? There, that basket is done, and off walks the old man, cane in hand, and the basket on one arm. Lucy leads him, and Fido follows close.
|Little Fred Mason's father took him to an exhibition of wild animals. After they had looked at the elephants, lions, tigers, and bears, they went to see the monkeys. On the way, Mr. Mason bought two large oranges and gave them to Fred.
There were six cages of small animals. One of them was for the "happy family." Fred thought the creatures in it must be called the "happy family" because the dogs, cats, and monkeys were all the time teasing and plaguing one another. One monkey had a rat in his lap. He tended it as a mother does her baby. The monkey was happy, but Mr. Mason did not think the rat liked it very well.
Fred put one orange into his side pocket He could not wait until he got home to eat the other. As he walked along among the cages he seemed to care more for the fruit than for the animals. He sucked the orange with all his might, till he came to a cage with three monkeys in it.
One of them looked very sober and solemn. One opened his mouth and seemed to be laughing. All of them looked at Fred and held out their hands. They could not talk; if they could, they would have said, "Go halves!"