said Baucis . `` So we will ! '' These old folks , you must know , were quite poor , and had to work pretty hard for a living . Old Philemon toiled diligently in his garden , while Baucis was always busy with her distaff , or making a little butter and cheese with their cow 's milk , or doing one thing and another about the cottage . Their food was seldom anything but bread , milk , and vegetables , with sometimes a portion of honey from their beehive , and now and then a bunch of grapes , that had ripened against the cottage-wall . But they were two of the kindest old people in the world , and would cheerfully have gone without their dinners , any day , rather than refuse a slice of their brown loaf , a cup of new milk , and a spoonful of honey , to the weary traveller who might pause before their door . They felt as if such guests had a sort of holiness , and that they ought , therefore , to treat them better and more bountifully than their own selves . Their cottage stood on a rising ground , at some short distance from a village , which lay in a hollow valley , that was about half a mile in breadth . This valley , in past ages , when the world was new , had probably been the bed of a lake . There , fishes had glided to and fro in the depths , and water-weeds had grown along the margin , and trees and hills had seen their reflected images in the broad , and peaceful mirror . But , as the waters subsided , men had cultivated the soil , and built houses on it , so that it was now a fertile spot , and bore no traces of the ancient lake , except a very small brook , which meandered through the midst of the village , and supplied the inhabitants with water . The valley had been dry land so long , that oaks had sprung up , and grown great and high , and perished with old age , and been succeeded by others ; as tall and stately as the first . Never was there a prettier or more fruitful valley . The very sight of the plenty around them should have made the inhabitants kind and gentle , and ready to show their gratitude to Providence by doing good to their fellow-creatures . But , we are sorry to say , the people of this lovely village were not worthy to dwell in a spot on which Heaven had smiled so beneficently . They were a very selfish and hard-hearted people , and had no pity for the poor , nor sympathy with the homeless . They would only have laughed , had anybody told them that human beings owe a debt of love to one another , because there is no other method of paying the debt of love and care which all of us owe to Providence . You will hardly believe what I am going to tell you . These naughty people taught their children to be no better than themselves , and used to clap their hands , by way of encouragement , when they saw the little boys and girls run after some poor stranger , shouting at his heels , and pelting hum with stones . They kept large and fierce dogs , and whenever a traveller ventured to show himself in the village street , this pack of disagreeable curs scampered to meet him , barking , snarling , and showing their teeth .
Then they would seize him by his leg , or XXXXX his clothes , just as it happened ; and if he were ragged when he came , he was generally a pitiable object before he had time to run away .
So as before by except in of on that through