8. The story, or the fable, that I promised to tell you, is in the next lesson, and I wish you, when you read it, to see whether you can find out what the lesson, or moral, is which it teaches; and whether it is at all like the story of the father and the bundle of sticks, that I told you in the last lesson. While you read it, be very careful that you do not pass over any word the meaning of which you do not know. LESSON IV. _The Discontented Pendulum._--JANE TAYLOR. [Illustration] 1. An old clock, that had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen, without giving its owner any cause of complaint, early one summer's morning, before the family was stirring, suddenly stopped. 2. Upon this, the dial-plate (if we may credit the fable) changed countenance with alarm; the hands made a vain effort to continue their course; the wheels remained motionless with surprise; the weights hung speechless;--each member felt disposed to lay the blame on the others. 3. At length the dial instituted a formal inquiry as to the cause of the stagnation, when hands, wheels, weights, with one voice, protested their innocence. 4. But now a faint tick was heard below from the pendulum, who thus spoke:--"I confess myself to be the sole cause of the present stoppage; and I am willing, for the general satisfaction, to assign my reasons. The truth is, that I am tired of ticking." 5. Upon hearing this, the old clock became so enraged, that it was on the very point of _striking_. "Lazy wire!" exclaimed the dial-plate, holding up its hands. 6. "Very good!" replied the pendulum; "it is vastly easy for you, Mistress Dial, who have always, as everybody knows, set yourself up above me,--it is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness! You, who have had nothing to do, all the days of your life, but to stare people in the face, and to amuse yourself with watching all that goes on in the kitchen! 7. "Think, I beseech you, how you would like to be shut up for life in this dark closet, and to wag backwards and forwards, year after year, as I do." 8. "As to that," said the dial, "is there not a window in your house, on purpose for you to look through?"--"For all that," resumed the pendulum, "it is very dark here; and although there is a window, I dare not stop, even for an instant, to look out at it. 9. "Besides, I am really tired of my way of life; and, if you wish, I'll tell you how I took this disgust at my employment. I happened this morning to be calculating how many times I should have to tick in the course of only the next twenty-four hours; perhaps some of you, above there, can give me the exact sum." 10. The minute-hand, being _quick_ at figures, presently replied, "Eighty-six thousand four hundred times."