Page:Fables of Aesop.pdf/9

 The Wolf and the Crane.jpg A Wolf, after devouring his prey, felt a bone stick in his throat, which was so painful that he went about offering a reward to any one who should take it out. At last the Crane, tempted with the reward, undertook the business, but first made the Wolf confirm his promise. So the Crane, venturing his long neck into the Wolf's throat, plucked out the bone, and expected the reward. The Wolf, turning his eyes disdainfully towards him, said, ‘I might have bit off your head when it was in my mouth, and yet you are not contented.’ He who trusts an unprincipled fellow may smart for his folly. The Old Woman and her Maids.jpg An Old Woman having about her a parcel of idle maids, obliged them to rise every morning at the cock crowing. The Maids, looking upon this as a hardship, resolved to put a stop to the growing evil and so cut off the Cock’s head, thinking that they might afterwards lie securely in bed, and indulge themselves in their laziness. The careful mistress, however, soon frustrated their design. She immediately ordered a bell to be brought to her, which she regularly rung at midnight, and obliged her lazy maids to get out of their beds. It is good to be industrious, for laziness is often punished with want.