"Well, well!" he said. "You've paid a dear price for this thing. It's only a penny whistle, and a poor one at that."
"You might have bought half a dozen such whistles with the money I gave you," said his mother.
The little boy saw what a mistake he had made. The whistle did not please him any more. He threw it upon the floor and began to cry.
"Never mind, my child," said his mother, very kindly. "You are only a very little boy, and you will learn a great deal as you grow bigger. The lesson you have learned to-day is never to pay too dear for a whistle." Benjamin Franklin lived to be a very old man, but he never forgot that lesson.
Every boy and girl should remember the name of Benjamin Franklin. He was a great thinker and a great doer, and with Washington he helped to make our country free. His life was such that no man could ever say, "Ben Franklin has wronged me."
THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD
I
In Scotland there once lived a poor shepherd whose name was James Hogg. His father and grandfather and great-grandfather had all been shepherds.
It was his business to take care of the sheep which belonged to a rich landholder by the Ettrick Water. Sometimes he had several hundreds of lambs to look after. He drove these to the pastures on the hills and watched them day after day while they fed on the short green grass.
He had a dog which he called Sirrah. This dog helped him watch the sheep. He would drive them from place to place as his master wished. Sometimes he would take care of the whole flock while the shepherd was resting or eating his dinner.