| OCR Text |
Show SUMMER FABLE A Codfish was one day sailing around in search of some one who might be inclined to a religious dispute, when he came across a Clam. That was in the days when Codfish put on a heap of airs over the Clam tribe, and this particular ???[fish] stuck up his nose at the particular Clam and began: "Here you are, grabbing away on this name old sand-bank for a living, while I have journeyed over a thousand miles in the last four weeks." "I am quite content," replied the Clam, "I am rather near sighted, slow on foot and nature did not intend me to travel far. Neither of us make more than a living, and I am satisfied if you are." "yes, but you have such an outlandish shape," ancered [answered] the Cod. "Why, there's neither head, nor tail, nor legs, nor arms to you. Your eyes are scaresly to be seen, and one little grin for a ??? would split your whole face open." "My eyes are plenty large enough to see that no two fish in the ocean agree," tartly replied the Clam, "and, seeing this I have no cause to smile. What you say about my form is true, but I make a good chowder, for all that, and I have no bones to trouble the throats of humanity." "Well, I'm thankful that I wasn't born to begin and end my days in a sand-bank. I go everywhere. I take in all the free lunches. Small fish fear me, and big ones can't catch me. See how I glide around." The Cod took a circle around to show off, stood on his head, flourished his tail, and then asked. "Can any of the clam family do half of that?" "As I said before," quietly replied the Clam, "we were not cat? Out for ?I the? orators or acrobats. What I can do I try to do well. What I can't do I let alone and don't worry over." At that moment a fish-hook nicely baited dropped down between them. "Now, if you only had a little more mouth you could get enough at one gulp to last you all day," remarked the Cod as he eyed the bait. "As it is, you may stand by and see me take in that banquet. Just see what mouth will do for one in this world." He opened his mouth, made a dive for the bait, and was about to wink at the Clam with his left eye when he was suddenly pulled out of the water and landed in a boat. "I think," mused the Clam as he closed his shell, "that it is a great deal nicer to be a clam on a sand-bank than a Cod in a fish boat, but I'll be ‘open' ??? next flood time." MORAL: ????? knowing when to ??? [end of column torn & unreadable |
