Georgie | Page 5

would consist in the pleasure you would take in playing with it.
"Now, it is generally best to buy such playthings as you can use a great many times, and in a great many ways; such as a top, a ball, a knife, a wheelbarrow. But things that please you only by their novelty, will soon lose all their power to give you pleasure, and be good for nothing to you. Such, for instance, as jumping men, and witches, and funny little images. Children are very often deceived in buying their playthings; for those things which please by their novelty only, usually please them very much for a few minutes, while they are in the shop, and see them for the first time; while those things which would last a long time, do not give them much pleasure at first.
"There is another kind of playthings I want to tell you about a little, and then my lecture will be done. I mean playthings which give you pleasure, but give other persons pain. A drum and a whistle, for example, are disagreeable to other persons; and children, therefore, ought not to choose them, unless they have a place to go to, to play with them, which will be out of hearing. I have known boys to buy masks to frighten other children with, and bows and arrows, which sometimes are the means of putting out children's eyes. So you must consider, when you are choosing playthings, first, whether the pleasure they will give you will be from the novelty or the use; and, secondly, whether, in giving you pleasure, they will give any other persons pain.
"This is the end of the lecture. Now you may rest a little, and look about, and then I will tell you a short story."

THE YOUNG DRIVERS.
They came, about this time, to the foot of a long hill, and Jonas said he believed that he would get out and walk up, and he said James might drive the horse. So he put the reins into James's hands, and jumped out. Rollo climbed over the seat, and sat by his side. Presently James saw a large stone in the road, and he asked Rollo to see how well he could drive round it; for as the horse was going, he would have carried one wheel directly over it. So he pulled one of the reins, and turned the horse away; but he contrived to turn him out just far enough to make the other wheel go over the stone. Rollo laughed, and asked him to let him try the next time; and James gave him the reins; but there was no other stone till they got up to the top of the hill.
Then James said that Rollo might ride on the front seat now, and when Jonas got in, he climbed back to the back seat, and took his place by the side of Rollo's mother.
"Come, mother," then said Rollo, "we are rested enough now: please to begin the story."
"Very well, if you are all ready."
So she began as follows:--

THE STORY Of SHALLOW, SELFISH, AND WISE.
Once there were three boys going into town to buy some playthings: their names were Shallow, Selfish, and Wise. Each had half a dollar. Shallow carried his in his hand, tossing it up in the air, and catching it, as he went along. Selfish kept teasing his mother to give him some more money: half a dollar, he said, was not enough. Wise walked along quietly, with his cash safe in his pocket.
Presently Shallow missed catching his half dollar, and--chink--it went, on the sidewalk, and it rolled along down into a crack under a building. Then he began to cry. Selfish stood by, holding his own money tight in his hands, and said he did not pity Shallow at all; it was good enough for him; he had no business to be tossing it up. Wise came up, and tried to get the money out with a stick, but he could not. He told Shallow not to cry; said he was sorry he had lost his money, and that he would give him half of his, as soon as they could get it changed at the shop.
So they walked along to the toy-shop.
Their mother said that each one might choose his own plaything; so they began to look around on the counter and shelves.
After a while, Shallow began to laugh very loud and heartily at something he found. It was an image of a grinning monkey. It looked very droll indeed. Shallow asked Wise to come and see. Wise laughed at it too, but said he should not want to buy it, as he thought he should soon get tired of laughing at any thing, if it was ever so droll.
Shallow was sure