“Depend upon it, my dear,” said Mrs. Nut-cracker, solemnly, “that fellow must be a genius.”
“Fiddlestick on his genius!” said old Mr. Nut-cracker; “what does he do?”
“Oh, nothing, of course; that’s one of the first marks of genius. Geniuses, you know, never can come down to common life.”
A busy-body.
Old Mother Magpie was about the busiest character in the forest. But you must know that there is a great difference between being busy and being industrious. One may be very busy all the time, and yet not in the least industrious; and this was the case with Mother Magpie.
She was always full of everybody’s business but her own,—up and down, here and there, everywhere but in her own nest, knowing every one’s affairs, telling what everybody had been doing or ought to do, and ready to cast her advice gratis at every bird and beast of the woods.
A DOG’S MISSION.
Broken idols.
Do you, my brother, or grown-up sister, ever do anything like this? Do your friendships and loves ever go the course of our Charley’s toy? First, enthusiasm; second, satiety; third, discontent; then picking to pieces; then dropping and losing! How many idols are in your box of by-gone playthings? And may it not be as well to suggest to you, when you find flaws in your next one, to inquire before you pick to pieces whether you can put together again, or whether what you call defect is not a part of its nature? A tin locomotive won’t draw a string of parlor chairs, by any possible alteration, but it may be very pretty for all that it was made for. Charley and you might both learn something from this.