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THE LION AND THE MOUSE

NE day a great lion lay asleep in the sunshine. A little mouse ran across his paw and wakened him. The great lion was just going to eat him up when the little mouse cried, "O please, let me go, sir, some day I may help you.'

The lion laughed at the thought that the little mouse could be of any use to him. But he was a good-natured lion, and he set the mouse free.

Not long after, the lion was caught in a net. He tugged and pulled with all his might, but the ropes were too strong. Then he roared loudly. The little mouse heard him, and ran to the spot.

"Be still, dear Lion, and I will set you free. I will gnaw the ropes."

With his sharp little teeth, the mouse cut the ropes, and the lion came out of the net.

"You laughed at me once," said the mouse. "You thought I was too little to do you a good turn. But see, you owe your life to a poor little mouse."

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THE DOG AND HIS IMAGE

DOG once stole a piece of meat and ran away. Down the road he went, and across the brook on a plank. Midway across he stopped and looked into the water. He thought he saw another dog with a piece of meat in his mouth.

This meat looked larger to him than his own.

"I'll have it!" growled he, and sprang into the water. But he lost the first piece of meat, and did not get the other, for what he saw was his own reflection.

Do not be greedy, or you may lose all you have.

A

THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE

HARE once made fun of a tortoise. "What a slow
way you have!" he said. "How you creep along!
"Do I?" said the tortoise. "Try a race with me and

I'll beat you.'

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"What a boaster you are," said the hare. But come! I will race with you. Whom shall we ask to mark off the bounds and see that the race is fair?"

"Let us ask the fox," said the tortoise. The fox was very wise and fair. He showed them where they were to start, and how far they were to run.

The tortoise lost no time. He started out at once, and jogged straight on.

The hare leaped along swiftly for a few minutes till he had left the tortoise far behind. He knew he could reach the mark very quickly, so he lay down by the road under a shady tree and took a nap.

By and by he awoke, and remembered the race. He sprang up and ran as fast as he could. But when he reached the mark the tortoise was there!

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Slow and steady wins the race," said the fox.

O

THE FOX AND THE GRAPES

NE warm day a thirsty fox found some bunches of grapes growing high up on a vine. "I must have those grapes," he thought.

Again and again he sprang into the air but he could not reach them. At last he went away, saying, "The grapes are very sour! Even the birds would not peck at them."

That is what people sometimes do when they cannot get what they want: they make believe that what they want is good for nothing.

THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN

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N a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw. When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterward a burning coal from the fire leaped down to the two.

Then the straw began and said, "Dear friends, from whence do you come here?"

The coal replied, "I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if I had not escaped by main force, my death would have been certain I should have been burned to ashes."

The bean said, "I too have escaped with a whole skin, but if the old woman had got me into the pan I should have been made into broth without any mercy, like my comrades."

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"And would a better fate have fallen to my lot?" said the straw. The old woman has destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she seized sixty of them at once, and took their lives. I luckily slipped through her fingers."

"But what are we to do now?" said the coal.

"I think," answered the bean, "that as we have so fortunately escaped death, we should keep together like good companions, and lest a new mischance should overtake us here, we should go away together, and repair to a foreign country."

The proposition pleased the two others, and they set out