Fifty-Two Story Talks to Boys and Girls Part 7

Now, a fable is meant to teach a lesson. The lesson of this fable is that gentleness wins where only strength and rudeness fail. If some one has done you a wrong, the way to deal with him is not to try to "get even" with him, as we say. Nor is the best way to get angry with him and scold him. The Bible tells us that the way to overcome your enemy is to do good for evil, for it says by so doing you will "heap coals of fire upon his head."

Usually it is the weak people who bl.u.s.ter like the northwind, and storm and brag. Strong people are usually quiet. There is an old saying that "if you are right you can afford to keep your temper, and if you are wrong you cannot afford to lose it." Be gentle. You will win more that way than by getting angry.

THE BOY AND THE TURTLE

Theodore Parker was one of the greatest preachers America ever had, and this story is told of him as a boy. One day, as he was going across the fields, he came to a pond where he saw a small turtle sunning itself upon a stone which rose out of the water. The boy picked up a stick, and was about to strike the turtle, when a voice within him said, "Stop!"

His arm paused in midair and, startled, he ran home to ask his mother what the voice meant. Tears came into his mother's eyes as she took the boy in her arms and told him that it was his conscience which had cried "Stop!" Then she told him that his conscience was the voice of G.o.d, and that his moral safety depended upon his heeding that inner voice.

The same thing is true of all boys and girls. If you obey that inner voice in questions of right and wrong, it will speak to you clearly.

But if you neglect it, it will grow silent, and you will be left in darkness and in doubt as to what is right and wrong.

Some people call this voice the "inner light," and that is a very good name for it. Every time you walk by the light you put fresh oil in the lamp, and the light grows stronger and the way clearer.

Whenever that inner voice speaks to you and tells you that a thing is wrong, don't argue with the voice and give reasons for doing the thing that is wrong. Obey the voice at once, as Parker did, and it will save you endless trouble.

THE BOY AND THE NICKEL

A man once found a boy crying on the street, and asked the little chap what he was crying about. The child told him he had just lost a nickel.

The stranger gave him another, and then the boy began to cry again. This greatly astonished the man, and he asked him why he was crying again.

The little chap said, "Because, if I hadn't lost that other nickel, I'd have two now."

That was, of course, a very foolish way to look at it, but that is the way a great many people look at things. This is what is called covetousness. Covetous people always want something they have not, and so they are usually unhappy.

The way to be happy is to think of the things you have, and not of the things you have not. A man was once told that Caesar was going to cause him great unhappiness, and he replied that if Caesar could blot out the sun with a blanket he might make him unhappy. But if he had the sun to s.h.i.+ne upon him, he would still be happy. We all have the sun to s.h.i.+ne upon us, and other things a-plenty to be happy over, if we will just count them up. Let us not be like the little boy crying about the nickel he did not have.

THE THREE FATES

Boys and girls in ancient Greece believed that there were three fates, in the form of three women seated above the clouds, who spun the thread of everyone's life, and cut it off with shears when death came.

We no longer believe in such things, but we still speak of fate. Boys and girls sometimes say that they are fated to fail in examinations, and so think they cannot help failing. But that is no more true than the belief about the three women which the Grecian boys and girls held. As a matter of fact, nothing outside of us makes evil things happen to us. We make our own fates. Or shall I say, we _are_ our own fates? Someone has said, "Our fates lie asleep along the roadside until we waken them."

That is very true, as I think I can show you by a story.

Not long ago I was riding on a train up through Vermont. A boy came into the car selling papers, books, candy, fruit, and other things. There was a boy opposite me in the smoking-car who wanted to appear very smart and manly. He was smoking a cigar and looking very much traveled. The trainboy offered him a book which had a bad t.i.tle and worse pictures in it. But in front of this young chap sat two bright-faced, innocent-looking boys who did not pretend to be anything but what they were. The trainboy offered them salted peanuts. In front of those boys sat a fine, clean-looking, well-bred man. The trainboy offered him a good, wholesome book.

Now, three fates were in that car in the form of that trainboy, and each person invited his own kind of fate by what he was in himself. That is true all through life. Be true, and you attract truth. Be evil, and you attract evil. Your fate is what you are.

THE INCH-WORM AND THE MOUNTAIN

Out in the state of California there is a great valley known as the Yosemite Valley, and here once lived a tribe of Indians who tried to explain how the wonderful streams and trees and rocks came to be.

The story of one of the highest peaks, El Capitan, is very interesting.

One day some Indian boys went fis.h.i.+ng in a beautiful lake in the Yosemite, and after they had grown tired they lay down in the sun upon a rock beside the lake. They soon fell fast asleep. How long they slept they did not know, but when they awoke they found that during their sleep the rock on which they lay had been stood on end, so that they were now nearly a mile high in the air and had no means of getting down.

They were in a bad plight.

But the animals in the valley which were friendly to mountaineers saw their misfortune and held a conference as to how to help the boys get down. They decided that the only thing to do was to try to climb up the face of the cliff. But the rock, was too steep, and so they tried to jump up. First the racc.o.o.n tried it, then the bear, then the squirrel, then the fox, and finally the mountain-goat. It was all to no avail, however, and they gave up in discouragement, and were about to leave the boys to perish, when the inch-worm came along and offered her services.

The animals laughed her to scorn. What could she do, with her snail-pace, when they all, who were so fleet of foot, had to give it up!

But she would not be laughed out of her purpose, and she began to climb up the cliff. Slowly, inch by inch, she crawled up, so slowly that it seemed as if she would take a thousand years to get there. But as she pa.s.sed crag after crag the animals below ceased making fun of her and began to shout encouragement. At last she reached the top. And then the Great Spirit turned her into a huge b.u.t.terfly so strong that she flew down, with the boys on her back, to safety.

There is a verse in the Old Testament which says that the race is not always to the swift, which means that it is not always the strongest who win. It is the one who keeps at it. Many a bright boy fails in school because the lessons come so easily he does not work. Many a dull boy wins because he sticks to it and plods away.

If you are tempted to trust too much to your brightness, remember the animals who made fun of the inch-worm. If you are dull, remember the inch-worm, take courage, and plod away. You will get there sometime.

THE FRENCH DRUMMER-BOY

I want to tell you to-day of one of the bravest deeds ever done by a boy.

It happened this way. Back in the year 1793, when the French people were having trouble with their king and queen, and finally put them to death, the rulers called in soldiers from other nations to help them against their own people. The foreign soldiers met the French troops before a town called Maubeuge, and there a fierce battle was fought.

The fiercest part of the fighting was carried on against Hungarian Grenadiers, who held the market-place of the town. During this charge a drummer-boy in the French army saw that his countrymen were having a hard time of it, so he slipped around back of these Hungarian soldiers to the other side of the market-place, right in the thick of the enemy, and there drummed the charge, in order to make his comrades think that some of the French soldiers had already pushed through the enemy's ranks, and so encourage the others to push on.

Many years after, in digging up the ground about the market-place, the little bones of that drummer-boy were found buried alongside the bones of the tall Hungarian men amongst whom he had fallen. The French people have put up a statue to his memory in the town of Avesnes, and he is shown still beating the charge on his drum, and looking out toward the frontier whence the enemy of his people came.

A KING IN THE STUFF

In the early days of the history of the children of Israel the people were ruled by judges, and it was not until they saw the nations round about them under the leaders.h.i.+p of kings that they desired a king of their own. In spite of the warnings of the old prophet Samuel, they demanded a king, and Samuel chose a young man, afterwards King Saul, to be their ruler.

But when the people came together to make Saul King they could not find him. They searched a long while, and finally G.o.d told them that Saul had hidden himself amongst the baggage. There they looked, and sure enough, as the old story says, there was a king "hid in the stuff."

That was many hundreds of years ago, and kings are no longer made in that way. But the story has a meaning still for every boy. There is still a king hid in the stuff that goes to make up every boy. A great many things about a boy in which he hides his kings.h.i.+p seem no better than the worthless stuff in which Saul hid. There are mistakes, outbursts of temper, laziness, selfishness, impatience, deceit, and cruelty. But hidden beneath all that, G.o.d would have you remember that there is still a king hid in the stuff.

A story is told of the son of Louis XVI of France, whose father and mother were put to death by the people. He was thus left an orphan, and was sent to live with a wicked man and woman who tried to teach him all manner of wrongdoing. But when they tried to persuade him to do wrong, he would refuse, and say that he was a king's son, and would some day be king himself, therefore he could not stoop so low.