It was time for the Child to have lessons. The father gave him a sheet of paper, smooth and white; a pencil, and a ruler.

“Write as well as you can,” he said, “and be sure you keep the lines straight!”

The Child admired the ruler very much. “I will put it up on the wall,” he said, “where I can see it always.”

So he put it up on the wall, and the sunbeams sparkled on it.

“It must be pure gold,” said the Child; “there is nothing else so beautiful in the world.” And then he began his task.

By and by the lesson time was over, and the father came to see what had been done.

The Child showed him the paper on which he had written his task. Up and down went the lines, here and there, from side to side of the sheet, which was covered with sprawling, straggling letters. There were spots, too, where he had tried to rub out something. It was not a pretty page.

“What is this?” asked the father. “Where is your ruler?”

“There it is,” said the Child. “It is up on the wall. It was so beautiful that I put it up there where I could see it all the time. See where it hangs! But it does not seem as bright as it was.”

“No,” said the father. “It would have been brighter if you had used it.”

“But I admired it very much,” said the Child.

“But your lines are crooked,” said the father.

—Laura E. Richards (Adapted).