C052

I have been asked to send a message from China to the children of the United States. I shall tell you a story I told an American professor when we walked among the golden palaces of the forbidden City in Bejing, China. Thousands of years ago, the king of our Flowery Kingdom received a gift of a wonderful pearl from the Emperor of India. While he was showing the gem to his nobles, it slipped from his fingers and rolled into a small, round, deep hole in a rock. Some tried to lift it out with long, slender strips of bamboo, but the gem fitted too snugly in the hole. When no one could think of a way to get the pearl, the king's joy over the gift turned to sorrow. Then a small lad, no older than one of you, stepped forward and offered to get the gem. The king forgot his sorrow in laughing that a mere boy who thought he could do something the wisest man had not been able to do. What do you think the boy did? The next lesson will tell.