Ray looked eagerly at the little box.
“Listen,” continued the little storekeeper, “and I’ll tell you a true story about this wonderful little box.”—
Once there was a little, ragged boy named Hans, so poor that his good mother could not afford to buy him shoes. All day long he trudged, weary and footsore, from door to door to sell mats that he braided from straw.
Sometimes people were kind and smiled at his bright little face, even though they could not buy the mats.
A smile made Hans happy for a whole day. Sometimes people did not buy, but they gave him a nice bowl of milk and a piece of bread.
This made Hans happy for two whole days. And sometimes people bought his mats and praised them as they put a piece of money in his honest brown hands.
This made Hans so very happy that he forgot about his poverty and his sore, bare feet, and he would run all the way home to give the money to his mother.
But one weary day, Hans wandered into a strange village to sell his mats, where the people were so poor that they could not afford a smile; so selfish that they would not give a hungry boy a drink of milk, and so mean that they would not look at his mats, although they were rich and lived in grand houses.
Poor little Hans turned homeward after a day of disappointments. He did not feel at all happy, and his poor, bare feet were very sore.
Just outside the village he met an old man carrying a heavy basket, who was so feeble that he had to stop every now and then to rest.