THE STORY OF THE SQUASHES.
I know of two little boys, twin-brothers, who are just five years old. They are so nearly alike that their best friends can scarcely tell them apart. Sturdy little men they are; so strong and fair and stout, that I should be glad to kiss them even when they have come from the dirtiest depths of their mud-pies. I fancy their mother sighs often over their torn pantaloons, their battered hats, and their soiled boots; but for all that, they must play, and things will wear out.
One day in the fall, their papa sent up to the house a farmer's wagon full of great beautiful squashes, to be put into the cellar for the winter's use. The farmer put the squashes on the ground close by the cellar-door ready for storage. But, when their papa came home, the squashes had disappeared, and he inquired who had put them into the cellar, and went down to see if they had been properly stored.
But there were no squashes there. And he inquired again where they were; but no one knew. He called to the boys, who were playing horse on the sidewalk, to ask if they knew any thing of the squashes. Oh, yes! and they ran to the barn, he following; and where do you suppose the squashes were? In the pig-pen—every one of them!
They had toiled and tugged, and carried every squash—and many of them were large—out there, and fed them to the pigs.
The mischief done, who could scold those two bright, hard-working little men? I think their papa had to console himself with thinking if only they would work as well at something useful when they were grown up, he could forgive their rather wasteful business when they were little.
C. D. B.
