THE COCK AND THE JEWEL
"COME, my dears," said a Cock to his hens
one morning; "I am hungry, and so are
you. Let us go out. I will scratch up some
nice worms and beetles for our breakfast."
The hens stood waiting while he scratched.
But the first thing that he found was neither
a beetle nor a worm, but a precious stone. It
may have been a ruby or an emerald.
"Dear me!" said the Cock; "what is this?
a Jewel!
"How glad anybody else might be, to have
found such a prize; but I would rather have a
few kernels of good corn than all the Jewels in
the world."
"And so would we," said the hens.Nothing can do us good if it is not a thing
that we ourselves want.