Poor boy! he is having a hard time of it, and I pity him very much. If I were going to prescribe for him, this is what I should say, "Tom, my boy" (I know by his looks that his name is Tom), "don't be cast down. I'll show you the way out of your trouble. Your case is pretty bad; but there's a remedy. What you want to do is to give away something.
"Now, there's that doll that you are hugging so closely. What does a boy like you want of a doll? That must have been meant for some little girl. It was sent to you on purpose to give away. Of course it was.
"Then there are those two wagons. You don't want both of them. You know you don't. Find the boy who hadn't any Christmas presents, and give one of the wagons to him. Let that wooden soldier go with it; for what do you want of a soldier, when you have a gun of your own?
"And what if you should give away something that you do want very much; why, it wouldn't hurt you a bit: you would feel all the better for it. Just try now, Tom, and see if you wouldn't."
Perhaps the little boy would take my advice; and perhaps he wouldn't, but, if he should, I'm sure he would make a much more cheerful picture than he does now.
Uncle Sam.
THE DOG AND THE SHADOW.
A dog, crossing a bridge with a piece of meat in his mouth, saw in the water what he took to be another dog, with a piece of meat twice the size of his own. Letting go his own, he flew at the other dog to get the larger piece from him. He thus lost both,—that which he grasped at in the water, because it was a shadow; and his own, because the stream swept it away.