So he left the miller and walked on. He thought that perhaps somebody would give him more money for his boy. He walked on a little way and came to a large, beautiful white house by the side of the road. It belonged to a rich gentleman, who was standing at the door.
He thought he would go and offer him to this rich gentleman. While he was hesitating, he looked into his little boy’s face, and he was so pleasant, and looked so gentle and kind, that the man could not bear to sell him.
“No, no, no,” said he, “I will not sell my little boy at all. I have kept him a good while, and taken care of him, and I love him very much. No, I will not sell him. I will carry him home, and work very hard to get bread for him to eat. And he will be kind, and dutiful, and obedient, and when I grow old perhaps he will take care of me. No, no, I would not sell him for a thousand dollars.”
This is a fictitious story. It is written to teach children that if they are good, and kind, and obedient, their fathers will love them, and work hard, if necessary, to get them bread, and will not sell them, even if any body should offer them a thousand dollars.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Pages 81-82, 93-94, 119-120, and 169-170 are missing from this edition. In other editions, these are illustration pages or blank pages. Due to this, some of the page numbers in the Table of Contents in the original were incorrect. Page numbers have been corrected in this eBook.