WILLIAM AND THOMAS;
Or, the Contrast between Industry and Indolence.
In a village, at no small distance from the metropolis, lived a wealthy husbandman, who had two sons, William and Thomas, of whom the former was exactly a year older than the latter.
On the day that the second son was born, the husbandman set in his orchard two young apple-trees of an equal size, on which he bestowed the same care in cultivating, and they throve so much alike, that it was a difficult matter to say which claimed the preference.
As soon as the children were capable of using garden implements, their father took them, on a fine day, early in the spring, to see the two plants he had reared for them, and called after their names. William and Thomas having admired the beauty of these trees, now filled with blossoms, their father told them that he made them a present of them in good condition, and that they would continue to thrive or decay, in proportion to the labour or neglect they received.
Thomas, though the younger son, turned all his attention to the improvement of his tree, by clearing it of insects as soon as he discovered them, and propping up the stem, that it might grow perfectly upright. He dug all round it, to loosen the earth, that the root might receive nourishment from the warmth of the sun and the moisture of the dews. No mother could nurse a child more tenderly in its infancy, than Thomas did his tree.