The Story of Shallow, Selfish, and Wise.
Once there were three boys going into town to buy some playthings:
their names were Shallow, Selfish, and Wise. Each had half a
dollar. Shallow carried his in his hand, tossing it up in the air,
and catching it, as he went along. Selfish kept teasing his mother
to give him some more money: half a dollar, he said, was not
enough. Wise walked along quietly, with his cash safe in his
pocket.
Presently Shallow missed catching his half dollar, and--chink--it
went, on the sidewalk, and it rolled along down into a crack under
a building. Then he began to cry. Selfish stood by, holding his
own money tight in his hands, and said he did not pity Shallow at
all; it was good enough for him; he had no business to be tossing
it up. Wise came up, and tried to get the money out with a stick,
but he could not. He told Shallow not to cry; said he was sorry he
had lost his money, and that he would give him half of his, as
soon as they could get it changed at the shop.
So they walked along to the toy-shop.
Their mother said that each one might choose his own plaything; so
they began to look around on the counter and shelves.
After a while, Shallow began to laugh very loud and heartily at
something he found. It was an image of a grinning monkey. It
looked very droll indeed. Shallow asked Wise to come and see. Wise
laughed at it too, but said he should not want to buy it, as he
thought he should soon get tired of laughing at any thing, if it
was ever so droll.
Shallow was sure that he should never get tired of laughing at so
very droll a thing as the grinning monkey; and he decided to buy
it, if Wise would give him half of his money; and so Wise did.
Selfish found a rattle, a large, noisy rattle, and went to
springing it until they were all tired of hearing the noise.
“I think I shall buy this,” said he. “I can make believe that
there is a fire, and can run about springing my rattle, and
crying, ‘Fire! Fire!’ or I can play that a thief is breaking into
a store, and can rattle my rattle at him, and call out, ‘Stop
thief!’ ”
“But that will disturb all the people in the house,” said Wise.
“What care I for that?” said Selfish.
Selfish found that the price of his rattle was not so much as the
half dollar; so he laid out the rest of it in cake, and sat down
on a box, and began to eat it.
Wise passed by all the images and gaudy toys, only good to look at
a few times, and chose a soft ball, and finding that that did not
take all of his half of the money, he purchased a little morocco
box with an inkstand, some wafers, and one or two short pens in
it. Shallow told him that was not a plaything; it was only fit for
a school; and as to his ball, he did not think much of that.
Wise said he thought they could all play with the ball a great
many times, and he thought, too, that he should like his little
inkstand rainy days and winter evenings.
So the boys walked along home. Shallow stopped every moment to
laugh at his monkey, and Selfish to spring his rattle; and they
looked with contempt on Wise’s ball, which he carried quietly in
one hand, and his box done up in brown paper in the other.
When they got home, Shallow ran in to show his monkey. The people
smiled a little, but did not take much notice of it; and, in fact,
it did not look half so funny, even to himself, as it did in the
shop. In a short time, it did not make him laugh at all, and then
he was vexed and angry with it. He said he meant to go and throw
the ugly old baboon away; he was tired of seeing that same old
grin on his face all the time. So he went and threw it over the
wall.
Selfish ate his cake up, on his way home. He would not give his
brothers any, for he said they had had their money as well as he.
When he got home, he went about the house, up and down, through
parlor and chamber, kitchen and shed, springing his rattle, and
calling out, “Stop thief! Stop thief!” or “Fire! Fire!” Every body
got tired, and asked him to be still; but he did not mind, until,
at last, his father took his rattle away from him, and put it up
on a high shelf.
Then Selfish and Shallow went out and found Wise playing
beautifully with his ball in the yard; and he invited them to play
with him. They would toss it up against the wall, and learn to
catch it when it came down; and then they made some bat-sticks,
and knocked it back and forth to one another, about the yard. The
more they played with the ball, the more they liked it, and, as
Wise was always very careful not to play near any holes, and to
put it away safe when he had done with it, he kept it a long time,
and gave them pleasure a great many times all summer long.
And then his inkstand box was a great treasure. He would get it
out in the long winter evenings, and lend Selfish and Shallow,
each, one of his pens; and they would all sit at the table, and
make pictures, and write little letters, and seal them with small
bits of the wafers. In fact, Wise kept his inkstand box safe till
he grew up to be a man.
That is the end of the story.
The Toy-Shop.
“I wish I could get an inkstand box,” said Rollo, when the story was
finished.
“I think he was very foolish to throw away his grinning monkey,” said
James, “I wish I could see a grinning monkey.”
They continued talking about this story some time, and at length they drew
nigh to the city. They drove to a stable, where Jonas had the horse put
up, and then they all walked on in search of a toy-shop.
They passed along through one or two streets, walking very slowly, so that
the boys might look at the pictures and curious things in the shop
windows. At length they came to a toy-shop, and all went in.
They saw at once a great number and variety of playthings exhibited to
view. All around the floor were arranged horses on wheels, little carts,
wagons, and baskets. The counter had a great variety of images and
figures,--birds that would peep, and dogs that would bark, and drummers
that would drum--all by just turning a little handle. Then the shelves and
the window were filled with all sorts of boxes, and whips, and puzzles,
and tea-sets, and dolls, dressed and not dressed. There were bows and
arrows, and darts, and jumping ropes, and glass dogs, and little
rocking-horses, and a thousand other things.
When the boys first came in, there was a little girl standing by the
counter with a small slate in her hand. She looked like a poor girl,
though she was neat and tidy in her dress. She was talking with the
shopman about the slate.
“Don’t you think,” said she, “you could let me have it for ten cents?”
“No,” said he, “I could not afford it for less than fifteen. It cost me
more than ten.”
The little girl laid the slate down, and looked disappointed and sad.
Rollo’s mother came up to her, took up the slate, and said,
“I should think you had better give him fifteen cents. It is a very good
slate. It is worth as much as that, certainly.”
“Yes, madam, so I tell her,” said the shopman.
“But I have not got but ten cents,” said the little girl.
“Have not you?” said Rollo’s mother. She stood still thinking a moment,
and then she asked the little girl what her name was.
She said it was Maria.
She asked her what she wanted the slate for; and Maria said it was to do
sums on, at school. She wanted to study arithmetic, and could not do so
without a slate.
Jonas then came forward, and said that he should like to give her five
cents of Georgie’s money, and that, with the ten she had, would be enough.
He said that Georgie had given him authority to do what he thought best
with his money, and he knew, if Georgie was here, he would wish to help
the little girl.
Rollo and James were both sorry they had not thought of it themselves;
and, as soon as Jonas mentioned it, they wanted to give some of their
money to the girl; but Jonas said he knew that Georgie would prefer to do
it. At last, however, it was agreed that Rollo and James should furnish
one cent each, and Georgie the rest. This was all agreed upon after a low
conversation by themselves in a corner of the store; and then Jonas came
forward, and told the shopman that they were going to pay the additional
five cents, and that he might let the girl have the slate. So Jonas paid
the money, and it was agreed that Rollo and James should pay him back
their share, when they got their money changed. The boys were very much
pleased to see the little girl go away so happy with her slate in her
hand. It was neatly done up in paper, with two pencils which the shopman
gave her, done up inside.
After Maria was gone, the boys looked around the shop, but could not find
any thing which exactly pleased them; or at least they could not find any
thing which pleased them so much more than any thing else, that they could
decide in favor of it. So they concluded to walk along, and look at
another shop.
They succeeded at last in finding some playthings that they liked, and
Jonas bought a variety of useful things for Georgie. On their way home,
the carryall stopped at the house where Lucy lived and Rollo’s mother left
him and James there, to show Lucy their playthings.
One of the things they bought was a little boat with two sails, and they
went down behind the house to sail it. The other playthings and books they
carried down too, and had a fine time playing with them, with Lucy and
another little girl who was visiting her that afternoon.
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