What lesson does this fable teach?

A small cheat earns coins now and costs your good name later. (The girl's line exposes the trick, but the real punishment is the quiet drift of customers over the next year. The moral says it plainly: the coin "spends your name along with it.")

Why did the mill in the next village feel "nearer" to the innkeeper?

Trust made the longer walk cost less than being cheated. (The text gives no road and no price. "Farther away but felt nearer" measures comfort, not distance: an honest scale is worth a longer walk, so the honest mill feels close.)

In this passage, "trickery" most nearly means

cheating (The miller's hidden thumb makes the scale lie, so a coin "taken by trickery" is a coin taken by cheating, not by skill, bargaining, or wit.)

What did the baker begin to do after the girl spoke?

He weighed his sacks at home. (The passage says "the baker began weighing his sacks at home." It was the innkeeper, not the baker, who started walking to the next village.)

The Heavy Thumb: Level 2 Reading Comprehension Questions

In a market town there lived a miller who sold flour by weight. His scale was honest, but his thumb was not. When he poured flour into the pan, he let his thumb rest on its edge, and the scale read more than the bag held. Each trick earned him a coin, and each coin looked the same as an honest one.

One morning a girl watched the pan instead of the flour. "Your thumb is buying flour too," she said, loud enough for the whole line to hear. The miller laughed and gave her an extra scoop. Nobody laughed with him.

Nothing happened that day. But the baker began weighing his sacks at home. The innkeeper started walking to the mill in the next village, which was farther away but felt nearer. Within a year the miller's scale was honest all day long, because nobody came to test it.

A coin taken by trickery spends your name along with it.

Comprehension questions