Book of Virtue: the magic thread

Blah I'm sick and don't feel well. So something I love is Aesope Fables and Book of Virtues and anything like that.

One of my favorites is the Magic Thread found at:
http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/magic_thread.html "Too often, people want what they want (or what they think they want, which is usually "happiness" in one form or another) right now. The irony of their impatience is that only by learning to wait, and by a willingness to accept the bad with the good, do we usually attain those things that are truly worthwhile. "He that can have patience, can have what he will," Benjamin Franklin told us, and this French tale bears him out."

So what happens is Peter is a "strong, able boy" who would daydream of the future and what he would be when he grows up. "Peter found it hard to enjoy whatever he was doing at the moment, and was always hankering after the next thing. In winter he longed for it to be summer again, and in summer he looked forward to the skating, sledging, and warm fires of winter. At school he would long for the day to be over so that he could go home, and on Sunday nights he would sigh, "If only the holidays would come.""
He fell asleep in a forest and when he awoke, an old woman was there with a silver ball with gold thread.
"This is your life thread," the old woman replied. "Do not touch it and time will pass normally. But if you wish time to pass more quickly, you have only to pull the thread a little way and an hour will pass like a second. But I warn you, once the thread has been pulled out, it cannot be pushed back in again. It will disappear like a puff of smoke. The ball is for you. But if you accept my gift you must tell no one, or on that very day you shall die. Now, say, do you want it?"
Peter took it and when he was sick of school he would pull a little of the string so he wouldnt have to work or if it was during the week he would pull more so payday would come around. He would want to be married and when he pulled the string he was, he wanted kids then pull the string and kept doing that. When something was resolved another problem would arise. He became old, his kids left for careers of their own, his wife old and in pain and his mother passed on. He went to the forest and found the old lady who asked if Peter was happy.
"I'm not sure," Peter said. "Your magic ball is a wonderful thing. I have never had to suffer or wait for anything in my life. And yet it has all passed so quickly. I feel that I have had no time to take in what has happened to me, neither the good things nor the bad. Now there is so little time left. I dare not pull the thread again for it will only bring me to my death. I do not think your gift has brought me luck."
Anyway he wanted his time back and woke up as a young boy again.