asket of eggs upon her head,
dressed in a green gown, with a straw hat upon her head?" "God bless
you, master!" said the beggar, "I am so blind I can see nothing,
either in heaven above or in the earth below. I have been blind these
twenty years, and they call me 'poor old blind Richard.'"

Though the poor old man was such an object of charity and compassion,
yet the little boy determined, as usual, to play him some trick, and
as he was a great liar and deceiver, he spoke to him thus: "Poor old
Richard, I am heartily sorry for you with all my heart. I am just
eating my breakfast, and if you will sit down by me I will give you
part, and feed you myself." "Thank you with all my heart!" said the
poor man; "and if you will give me your hand I will sit by you with
great pleasure, my dear good little master."

The little boy then gave him his hand, and, pretending to direct him,
guided him to sit down in a large heap of wet mud that lay by the
roadside. "There," said he, "now you are nicely seated I am going to
feed you." So, taking a little of the dirt in his fingers, he was
going to put it into the blind man's mouth; but the man, who now
perceived the trick that had been played him, made a sudden snap at
his fingers, and getting them between his teeth bit them so severely
that the wicked boy roared out for mercy, and promised never more to
be guilty of such wickedness. At last the blind man, after he had put
him to very severe pain, consented to let him go, saying as he went:
"Are you not ashamed, you little scoundrel, to attempt to do hurt to
those who have never injured you, and to want to add to the suffering
of those who already are sufficiently miserable? Although you escape
now, be assured, sir, that if you do not repent and mend your manners,
you will meet with a severe punishment for your bad behavior."

One would think that this punishment would have cured him entirely of
this mischievous disposition, but, unfortunately nothing is so
difficult to overcome as bad habits that have been long indulged. He
had not gone far before he saw a lame beggar that had just made a
shift to support himself by the means of a couple of sticks. The
beggar asked him to give him something, and the mischievous little
boy, pulling out his sixpence, threw it down before him, as if he
intended to make him a present of it; but while the poor man was
stooping with difficulty to pick it up, the wicked little boy knocked
the stick away, by