Page:Little fabulist, or, Select fables.pdf/11

(11) your fate. Her sister made no reply; but calmly descending to the meadows below, increased her stream by numberless little rills, which she collected in her progress, till at length she was enabled to rise into a considerable river: whilst the proud Stream, who had the vanity to depend solely upon her own sufficiency, continued a shallow brook, and was glad at least to be helped forward, by throwing herself into the arms of her dispised sister.

The Farmer and his Dog.

FARMER who had just stepped into the field to mend a gap in one of his fences, found at his return the cradle, where he had left his only Child asleep, turned upside down, the clothes all torn and bloody, and his Dog lying near it besmeared also with blood. Immediately conceiving that the creature had destroyed his Child, he instantly dashed out his brains with the hatchet in his hand: when turning up the cradle, he found his child unhurt, and an enormous Serpent lying dead on the floor, killed by that faithful Dog, whose courage and fidelity in preserving the life of his Son deserved another kind of reward. These affecting circumstances afforded him a striking