He was a funny fellow!
Still, Father Thrift did not mind. He liked the quiet. When it was quiet he could think. In that he was quite different from many people, who like only to talk.
And he thought to himself: “Suppose that each person wastes one hour a day. A hundred days, a hundred hours. Multiply that by the number of people in the world—”
But the figures were too large even for Father Thrift to count up.
“If every one would use that hour each day in reading a good book, or in thinking, or in doing something else that is useful, how much better the world would be in another hundred years!”
Father Thrift sat and thought for a whole hour.
Then he waked the bear and each went to his own bed to rest for the night.
What a funny sight it was—a man and a bear sleeping side by side in the same room!
Early the next morning Father Thrift and the bear went to the maple grove to tap their trees.