Do you know what shrimps or prawns are? I daresay you have often eaten a shrimp! Have you ever counted its ten long legs? On the front pair there are two tiny brushes, and the prawn has been seen to stand up on his eight hind legs, and brush himself with the tiny tufts on his front legs, to get all the sand away. Is not that clever for such a little fellow?
There is another creature, very much smaller than the prawn, that is particularly clean, though we do not like to have it in our houses.
If the housemaid sees its little "parlour" in the corner of a room, she sweeps it away. You remember who it was that said: "Will you walk into my parlour?" It was the spider, and it is the spider who is so very fond of being clean, that it cannot bear to have a grain of dust anywhere about its body. Its hairs and legs are always kept perfectly clean.
Then there is the tiny ant, which is smaller than a fly, and it loves to keep itself nice and clean, so if
(Blackboard)
Shrimps and Spiders and Ants like to be Clean,
Children should like to be Clean.
58. The Boy who did not like to be Washed.
Sydney was a little boy who did not like to be washed. He disliked it as much as the little dog in Story Lesson [No. 4]. When the time came for his bath he screamed and kicked and made such a fuss that at last his mother said he should remain dirty for a while, and see what would happen. So Sydney had no bath when he went to bed at night, neither was he washed in the morning. Of course no one wanted to kiss him, or play with him, for he was not sweet and clean; he had to play all by himself in the garden.
Presently a carriage drove up and stopped at the garden gate; then a gentleman stepped out, walked up to the door, and rang the bell, which was answered by Sydney's mother.
"I have called to take your little boy for a drive," said the gentleman, "but I am in a great hurry; could you have him ready at once?"