A thirsty Crow found a Pitcher with some water in
it, but so little was there that, try as she might,
she could not reach it with her beak, and it seemed
as though she would die of thirst within sight of
the remedy. At last she hit upon a clever plan.
She began dropping pebbles into the Pitcher, and with
each pebble the water rose a little higher until at
last it reached the brim, and the knowing bird was
enabled to quench her thirst.
Necessity is the mother of
invention.
Some mischievous Boys were playing on the edge of
a pond, and, catching sight of some Frogs swimming
about in the shallow water, they began to amuse themselves
by pelting them with stones, and they killed several
of them. At last one of the Frogs put his head
out of the water and said, “Oh, stop! stop!
I beg of you: what is sport to you is death to
us.”
A dispute arose between the North Wind and the Sun,
each claiming that he was stronger than the other.
At last they agreed to try their powers upon a traveller,
to see which could soonest strip him of his cloak.
The North Wind had the first try; and, gathering up
all his force for the attack, he came whirling furiously
down upon the man, and caught up his cloak as though
he would wrest it from him by one single effort:
but the harder he blew, the more closely the man wrapped
it round himself. Then came the turn of the Sun.
At first he beamed gently upon the traveller, who
soon unclasped his cloak and walked on with it hanging
loosely about his shoulders: then he shone forth
in his full strength, and the man, before he had gone
many steps, was glad to throw his cloak right off
and complete his journey more lightly clad.
Persuasion is better than
force
A Widow, thrifty and industrious, had two servants,
whom she kept pretty hard at work. They were
not allowed to lie long abed in the mornings, but
the old lady had them up and doing as soon as the cock
crew. They disliked intensely having to get up
at such an hour, especially in winter-time: and
they thought that if it were not for the cock waking
up their Mistress so horribly early, they could sleep
longer. So they caught it and wrung its neck.
But they weren’t prepared for the consequences.
For what happened was that their Mistress, not hearing
the cock crow as usual, waked them up earlier than
ever, and set them to work in the middle of the night.
