But some of these very fathers and mothers, though they cry out so loudly against immoral books and periodicals, say they cannot afford to buy books for their children. It was only last week that I heard one of them tell a friend, who asked him to subscribe for a magazine for his daughter, that he was poor, and could not afford it. Poor! he gave one party last winter, on this same daughter's account, which cost him more than a hundred dollars. He cannot afford it! Well, if he does not afford to furnish reading for those children, I am afraid they will afford it themselves.
I have seen a little girl, when her sister had been doing something wrong, run straight to her mother, and tell her of it. But it only made the little mischief-maker worse. She went the wrong way to work. She labored hard enough to come at her sister's fault; but her labor was all thrown away. She was at the wrong end of the crow-bar. If, instead of posting off, as fast as she could run, to her mother, every time that sister did wrong, as if she really liked to be a tell-tale, she had said, as kindly as she could, "Susy, don't do so; that's naughty," or something of the kind, I presume it would all have been well enough.
VII.
THE FOX AND THE CRAB;
OR, A GOOD RULE, WITH A FLAW IN IT.
A FABLE.
A crab boasted that he was very cunning in setting traps. He used to bury himself in the mud, just under a nice morsel of a clam or an oyster; and when the silly fish came to make a dinner of this dainty morsel, he would catch him in his claws, and eat him.
He pretended to have a good deal of honor, though. He was quite a pious crab, according to his own account of himself. When he had caught a fish by his cunning, he used to say, "Poor fellow! it is his own fault, not mine. He ought to have kept out of the trap. If one does not know enough to keep away from my claws, he ought to be caught. Poor fellow! I'm sorry for him; but it can't be helped."
That is the way he took to quiet his own conscience, and to excuse himself to others, when they complained of his deceitful conduct.