"It was building its nest; wasn't it, grandma?" asked George.
"Just so; it would fly up with a piece of straw, sometimes with quite long pieces, and when it would get about half way up to the window, the straw would drop down, and then it would go right down after it and pick it up again. I saw it get one piece up three times, and the third time, it reached the window safely."
"Just then, my eyes fell on my book. I thought how much my pigeon had done, while I had been doing nothing; and yet it had only took one straw at a time. My lesson did not seem so long now. I very soon knew the whole of it."
"My lesson looks easier already, grandma. I shall only have to learn one word at a time, and I'll soon know all of them."
George set to work in good earnest, and in a short time he had learned it perfectly.
"Now, George," said his grandma afterwards, "do you think you will remember the pigeon?"
"Oh, I'm sure I shall," said George, laughing. "And when I come to the longest words, I'll do as the pigeon did when the straw fell, I'll go at them again!"
"IT'S very hard to have nothing to eat but porridge, when others have every dainty," muttered Charlie, as he sat with his wooden bowl before him. "It's very hard to have to get up so early on these bitter cold mornings, and work hard all day, when others can enjoy themselves without an hour of labor! It's very hard to have to trudge along through the snow, while others roll about in their coaches!"
"It's a great blessing," said his grandmother, as she sat reading her Bible, "it's a great blessing to have food, when so many are hungry; to have a roof over one's head, when so many are homeless; it's a great blessing to have sight, and hearing, and strength, for daily labor, when so many are blind, deaf, or suffering."