BUSY BEN,
AND IDLE ISAAC.

	BUSY BEN AND IDLE ISAAC.

IN a very pretty village, there once lived two boys, named Benjamin and Isaac. Benjamin was always at work, doing something; but Isaac liked best to take his ease, and did not care, like Benjamin, to be tidy and clean; but went ragged and dirty: so, at last, they were called by the neighbours, Busy Ben, and Idle Isaac.

3

One morning, as Busy Ben was passing through the village he saw Isaac idling about, “What! not doing any thing?” said Ben. “I have been lying in the sun,” replied Isaac, “and now I am so hot, I have taken off my jacket, to cool myself.”

Busy Ben saw that he had, and he saw also what a torn shirt he had under it.

“And I,” said Ben, “have been working in the garden, and watering the beds. Is it not much better to be at work, than lying in the sun?”

“You may think so,” said Idle Isaac, yawning, “but I do not; besides, my father can afford to keep me without,—he has plenty of work.”

4

“But he may not always have plenty of work,” answered Ben: “and even if he has, it is better to learn to keep ourselves.”

Such was the way these two boys talked to each other; but Isaac did not improve, he still idled his time away; true, he would now and then take a spade in hand, but he never did any work with it, but stood still or, sauntered about, staring first at one thing and then at another.

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