The crumbs that he had thrown to the six yellow gold fish were black, too. The pretty yellow grain that he gave the dove had been black, and when he had lifted the white pussy cat, his hands had left two big, black smudges upon her beautiful white fur.
“Why, my hands are dirty,” exclaimed Bobby.
You see, he had never really thought about his hands before. So he went right into the house to wash them and he never, never forgot to wash them again.
The Honest Woodman[8]
Once upon a time a poor woodman lived with his family near a great forest. Every week day he shouldered his ax very early in the morning, and bidding his wife and children good-by, went out to cut wood for his master.
One day when he was chopping at the trunk of a great tree growing near a stream, his ax suddenly slipped out of his hands and dropped with a splash into the water.
Oh, how troubled the poor man was! He couldn’t earn a penny without an ax, and he was too poor to buy one. He sat down on the bank and wept as though his heart would break.
“What is the trouble, my good man?” asked a voice at his side. It was a fairy! And such a jolly-looking fairy, too. He had wings on his cap, and wings on his shoes, and even on his staff!
“I dropped my ax in the stream, and I can’t chop wood any more, and my family will starve,” sobbed the man.