Page:Short stories for little folks, or, Little tales calculated to excite juvenile minds to the love and practice of virtue.pdf/16

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September they begin to lay up their ſtores of food; which conſiſt of the wood of the birch, the plane, and of ſome other trees. Thus they paſs the gloomy winter in eaſe and plenty.

These two American animals, contraſted with each other, afford a moſt ſtriking picture of the bleſſings of induſtry, and the penury and wretchedneſs of ſloth

Honeſty and Generoſity

A POOR man, who was door-keeper to a houſe in Milan, found a purſe which contained two hundred crowns. The man who had loſt it, informed by a public advertiſement, came to the houſe, and giving ſufficient proof that the purſe belonged to him, the door-keeper reſtored it. Full of joy and gratitude, the owner offered his benefactor twenty crowns, which he abſolutely refuſed. Ten were then propoſed, and afterwards five: but the doorkeeper ſtill continuing inexorable, the man threw his purſe upon the ground, and in an angry tone cried, I have loſt nothing, nothing at all, if you thus refuſe to accept of a gratuity." The door-keeper than conſented to receive five crowns, which he immediately diſtributed amongſt the poor.