"I do not know you, and have nothing to forgive you for," said the king.

"You do not know me, but I know you. I am that enemy of yours who swore to revenge himself on you, because you executed his brother and seized his property. I knew you had gone alone to see the hermit, and I resolved to kill you on your way back. But the day passed and you did not return. So I came out from my ambush to find you, and I came upon your bodyguard, and they recognized me, and wounded me. I escaped from them, but should have bled to death had you not dressed my wound. I wished to kill you, and you have saved my life. Now, if I live, and if you wish it, I will serve you as your most faithful slave, and will bid my sons do the same, Forgive me!"

The king was very glad to have made peace with his enemy so easily, and to have gained him for a friend, and he not only forgave him, but said he would send his servants and his own physician to attend him, and promised to restore his property.

Having taken leave of the wounded man, the king went out into the porch and looked around for the hermit. Before going away he wished once more to beg an answer to the questions he had put. The hermit was outside, on his knees, sowing seeds in the beds that had been dug the day before.

The king approached him, and said:

"For the last time, I pray you to answer my questions, wise man."

"You have already been answered!" said the hermit, still crouching on his thin legs, and looking up at the king, who stood before him.

"How answered? What do you mean?" asked the king.

"Do you not see ?" replied the hermit. "If you had not pitied my weakness yesterday, and had not dug

these beds for me, but had gone your way, that man would have attacked you, and you would have repented of not having stayed with me. So the most important time was when you were digging the beds; and I was the most important man; and to do me good was your most important business. Afterwards, when that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if you had not bound up his wounds he would have died without having made peace with you. So he was the most important man, and what you did for him was your most important business. Remember then: there is only one time that is important - Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else: and the most important affair is to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!"

FEBRUARY: THE VALUE OF
PERSEVERANCE

GEORGE STEPHENSON

George Stephenson, the engineer, was born at Newcastle, England, in 1781, and died in 1848. His family were desperately poor, so poor that the father, mother, four sons, and two daughters all lived in a one-room cottage. Of course, George had to go to work as early as possible, and at the age of eight he earned four cents a day by keeping off crows. He was too poor to go to school, and in England there were no truant laws. To amuse himself he used to make little engines of clay. An engine was like a pet to him, he said: he was never tired of watching it.

At the age of fourteen, he helped his father in the colliery as a fireman. Whenever he got a chance, he worked out sums in arithmetic by the light of his engine's fire, but until he was nineteen he had no chance for schooling. At the age of twenty, he was engaged as a brakeman in a colliery pit at five dollars a week; and very soon afterward he married. His wife died in a year or two, leaving him one little son.

Stephenson determined that his boy should have the education he had lacked, and after his day's work was over, he mended clocks and watches during the night to earn more money. Before very long, he became wellknown to the neighborhood as an "engine-doctor." Every engine came to him for repairs, and he also helped poor mothers by connecting the smoke-jack with the baby's cradle, making it rock automatically.

He invented also a lantern which would burn under water, and he would attract fish by night with it, catching them in numbers. By 1812 he was earning five hundred dollars a year, and his little son was also beginning to take a great interest in engines.

George Stephenson's heart was set on making a locomotive-engine- what was then called a traveling engine. It had been tried unsuccessfully some years before, but he felt sure that he could invent a reliable machine. This he did in 1815. For six years it received little notice, but at last, in 1825, the first public railroad was opened with one of Stephenson's engines. Thirtyeight cars, including six wagons full of corn and flour and a special car for the guests and for Stephenson, were taken safely over the new road. Railways were to be used henceforth all over the world.

Stephenson said of himself: "I have risen from a lower level than the meanest person here, and all I have been enabled to accomplish has been done by perseverance."

Longfellow writes:

Not in the clamor of the crowded street,

Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves are triumph and defeat.

Is this true or not true? Give an illustration to prove your point.

Read for Washington's birthday: Benjamin Franklin's letter from France to General Washington, 1780.

OPPORTUNITY 1

BY EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

Thus I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
A craven hung along the battle's edge,

And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel -
That blue blade that the king's son bears but this
Blunt thing!" he snapt and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.
Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,

And ran and snatched it, and with battle shout
Lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day.

MARCH: TAKING RESPONSIBILITY Questions: Would you be willing to be so made that you could not help doing right always, as a clock is

1 The Complete Poems of Edward Rowland Sill (Houghton Mifflin Co.).

wound up and made to strike at the right time? In what ways should you not like it?

Should you be glad if your lessons were all learned every day just as soon as you glanced at them? Why or why not?

Name two things that people can do and that animals cannot do.

If a mouse gets into the cupboard and eats the cheese, it is not to blame; but if a boy goes into the kitchen and eats the jam, he is blamed. Why do we blame people and not animals? Why is it better to be a person and not an animal?

"Everything that is worth having is hard to get. The easy things in life are not worth much." Is this true? Give an example. Do we value more what is hard to get?

Does a good person have as much fun or more than a bad one, in the long run? In what ways?

Sister Dora's real name was Dorothy Pattison. She was born in Yorkshire, England, January 16, 1832, and was the eleventh child in a family of twelve. She was a delicate child at first, but she grew stronger year by year until by the time she was twenty she had become vigorous and unusually athletic. She rode across the moors, hunted with her brothers, and was almost restlessly energetic. She had overflowing spirits, a keen sense of humor, and an indomitable will. When Miss Nightingale went out to the Crimea as a nurse, Dorothy begged her father to let her go also, but he wisely refused, telling her that she was both too young

1 Adapted from Margaret Lonsdale's Sister Dora: A Biography.