d often in school-readers, and by
virtue of its cleverness and point deserves its
happy fate. The author attached to it a "Moral"
almost as long as the story itself, and that
has long since fallen by the wayside. Perhaps
that is because the story is too clear to need
the "Moral." Here are a few sentences from it:
"The _present_ is all we have to manage: the
past is irrecoverable; the future is uncertain;
nor is it fair to burden one moment with the
weight of the next. Sufficient unto the
_moment_ is the trouble thereof. . . . One moment
comes laden with its own _little_ burden, then
flies, and is succeeded by another no heavier
than the last; if _one_ could be sustained, so
can another, and another. . . . Let any one
resolve to do right _now_, leaving _then_ to do
as it can, and if he were to live to the age of
Methuselah, he would never err. . . . Let us then,
'whatever our hands find to do, do it with all
our might, recollecting that _now_ is the
proper and the accepted time.'"

THE DISCONTENTED PENDULUM

JANE TAYLOR

An old clock that had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen
without giving its owner any cause of complaint, early one summer's
morning, before the family was stirring, suddenly stopped.

Upon this, the dial-plate (if we may credit the fable) changed
countenance with alarm: the hands made an ineffectual effort to continue
their course; the wheels remained motionless with surprise; the weights
hung speechless; each member felt disposed to lay the blame on the
others. At length the dial instituted a formal inquiry as to the cause
of the stagnation; when hands, wheels, weights, with one voice,
protested their innocence. But now a faint tick was heard below, from
the pendulum, who thus spoke:

"I confess myself to be the sole cause of the present stoppage; and am
willing, for the general satisfaction, to assign my reasons. The truth
is that I am tired of ticking." Upon hearing this, the old clock became
so enraged that it was on the point of _striking_.

"Lazy wire!" exclaimed the dial-plate, holding up its hands.

"Very good!" replied the pendulum, "it is vastly easy for you, Mistress
Dial, who have always, as everybody knows, set yourself up above me--it
is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness! Y