DINAH'S NEW YEAR'S PRESENT.

: Cinderella The Little Glass Slipper

Dinah Morris is a colored girl. She lives in the South. By South

we mean in the southern part of the United States.



Dinah is one of the most good-natured children that ever lived,

but she is very, very lazy. There is nothing she likes, or used

to like, so much as to curl up in some warm corner in the sun and

do nothing.



Dinah's mother wished very much that her child should learn to

/> read, but the lady who tried to teach her soon gave it up. "It is

no use," she said, "Dinah will not learn. She is not a stupid

child, but she is too lazy for anything."



It happened, soon after this, that a young man from Massachusetts

came to the house where Dinah lived. He brought with him

something no one else in the neighborhood had ever seen before--a

pair of roller-skates.



When Dinah saw the young man going rapidly up and down the piazza

on his skates she was so astonished she hardly knew what to

think. She ran after him like a cat, her black eyes shining as

they had never shone before.



One day the young man allowed her to try on the skates. The child

was too happy for words. Of course she fell down, and sprawled

about the floor, but did not mind at all.



"Look here, Dinah," said the young man, "I understand that my

aunt has been trying to teach you to read."



Dinah answered that she certainly had.



"Why didn't you learn?" asked the young man. "You need not

trouble to answer," said he, "it was just because you are too

lazy. Now, if, on the first of January, you can read, I tell you

what I will do. I will send you as good a pair of roller-skates

as I can buy in Boston."



How Dinah's eyes snapped. For a moment she said nothing, then

exclaimed decidedly, "I'll have those skates, sure."



And she did. When she bent her mind on her work she could always

do it well, no matter what it was.



The lady who had before this found her such a difficult child to

teach, now had no trouble. If Dinah showed the least sign of her

former laziness the word SKATES! was enough to make her bend her

mind on her lesson instantly.



On New Year's morning she received a box marked in large printed

letters:



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