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 title 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 fishing 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 raccoon 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 passed 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 butterfly 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.