ring in his wits. The three sons were
bitterly disappointed to have all their work for nothing.

The next olive season, the olive trees in the orchard bore more fruit
than they had ever given; the fine cultivating they had had from the
digging brought so much fruit, and of so fine a quality, that when it
was sold it gave the sons a whole pot of gold!

And when they saw how much money had come from the orchard, they
suddenly understood what the wise father had meant when he said, "There
is gold hidden in the orchard; dig for it."

MARGARET OF NEW ORLEANS

If you ever go to the beautiful city of New Orleans, somebody will be
sure to take you down into the old business part of the city, where
there are banks and shops and hotels, and show you a statue which
stands in a little square there. It is the statue of a woman, sitting
in a low chair, with her arms around a child, who leans against her.
The woman is not at all pretty: she wears thick, common shoes, a plain
dress, with a little shawl, and a sun-bonnet; she is stout and short,
and her face is a square-chinned Irish face; but her eyes look at you
like your mother's.

Now there is something very surprising about this statue: it was the
first one that was ever made in this country in honor of a woman. Even
in old Europe there are not many monuments to women, and most of the
few are to great queens or princesses, very beautiful and very richly
dressed. You see, this statue in New Orleans is not quite like anything
else.

It is the statue of a woman named Margaret. Her whole name was
Margaret Haughery, but no one in New Orleans remembers her by it, any
more than you think of your dearest sister by her full name; she is
just Margaret. This is her story, and it tells why people made a
monument for her.

When Margaret was a tiny baby, her father and mother died, and she was
adopted by two young people as poor and as kind as her own parents.
She lived with them until she grew up. Then she married, and had a
little baby of her own. But very soon her husband died, and then the
baby died, too, and Margaret was all alone in the world. She was poor,
but she was strong, and knew how to work.

All day, from morning until evening, she ironed clothes in a laundry.
And every day, as she worked by the window, she saw the little
motherless children from the orphan asylum, near by, working and
playing about. After a while, there came a great sickness upon the
city, a