"Every one can use it. It is the very
thing to offer a thirsty traveller who stops at our tumble-down house
to ask for a drink of water. My brothers can use it, too. I am sure
they will both be quite as careful of it as if it belonged to them.
We need only the one mug, for we share alike, because we love one
another."
Now one day there came a traveller over the dusty highroad. He was
thirsty and tired. He saw the well, and he went up to the door of the
tumble-down house and knocked, rat-tat-tat!
The stingy little dwarf was yawning in the parlor, because he never
did any work--he let the others do it. When he heard the rat-tat-tat
he kept very quiet.
The selfish little dwarf was in the dining-room, pretending to
sweep--but he was only sweeping the crumbs under the mat, for he did
not like to clean. He heard the rat-tat-tat! but he pretended that he
was too busy to answer it.
The third little dwarf was in the kitchen, scrubbing the hearth with a
mop. His sleeves were rolled up, and he had overalls on, but he could
not bear to keep a tired traveller waiting at the door. "I must go at
once," he thought. And he went.
"Come right round to the well," he said. "I will get a mug and give
you a drink of our nice cold water. You must be tired, for the highway
is warm, and dusty.
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