But
when you found that our new friend could sing, you all desired to sing
like him. Now, he was made to sing, and each of the rest of us to do
something else. You, Mr. Gander White, are good to make feather beds and
pillows; Hon. Turkey Pompous is good for the next Thanksgiving day; and
you, Mr. Peacock Strutwell, are good for nothing but to grow tail-feathers
to make fly-brushes of. But we all have our use. If we will all do our
best to be as useful as we can in our own proper sphere, we will do
better. There is our neighbor, Miss Sophie Jones, who has wasted two
hours a day for the last ten years, trying to learn music, when nature
did not give her musical talent, while Peter Thompson, across the street,
means to starve to death, trying to be a lawyer, without any talent for
it. Let us keep in our own proper spheres."
The company hoped he would say more, but Dr. Parrot here began to
exercise again, in order to keep his digestion good, and the rest
dispersed.
THE BOBOLINK AND THE OWL.
Having eaten his breakfast of beech-nuts, a bobolink thought he would
show himself neighborly; so he hopped over to an old gloomy oak tree,
where there sat a hooting owl, and after bowing his head gracefully, and
waving his tail in the most friendly manner, he began chirruping
cheerily, somewhat in this fashion:
"Good-morning, Mr.
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