Butterfly Coloring Page

The Tortoise and the Eagle.

A Tortoise, lazily basking in the sun, complained to the sea-birds ofher hard fate, that no one would teach her to fly. An Eagle, hoveringnear, heard her lamentation, and demanded what reward she would givehim, if he would take her aloft, and float her in the air. "I will giveyou," she said, "all the riches of the Red Sea." "I will teach you tofly then," said the Eagle; and taking her up in his talons, he carriedher almost to the clouds,—when suddenly letting her go, she fell on alofty mountain, and dashed her shell to pieces. The Tortoise exclaimedin the moment of death: "I have deserved my present fate; for what had Ito do with wings and clouds, who can with difficulty move about on theearth?"

If men had all they wished, they would be often ruined.

From Aesop's Fables