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How To Tell Stories To Children And Some Stories T
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How To Tell Stories To Children And Some Stories To Tell
by Sara Cone Bryant
March, 1996 [Etext #474]
*The Project Gutenberg Etext of How To Tell Stories To Children
And Some Stories To Tell* #1 in our series by Sara Cone Bryant
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HOW TO TELL STORIES
TO CHILDREN
AND SOME STORIES TO TELL
BY SARA CONE BRYANT
To My Mother
THE FIRST, BEST STORY-TELLER
THIS LITTLE BOOK IS
DEDICATED
PREFACE
The stories which are given in the following
pages are for the most part those which I have
found to be best liked by the children to whom
I have told these and others. I have tried to
reproduce the form in which I actually tell
them,--although that inevitably varies with
every repetition,--feeling that it would be of
greater value to another story-teller than a
more closely literary form.
For the same reason, I have confined my
statements of theory as to method, to those
which reflect my own experience; my "rules"
were drawn from introspection and retrospection,
at the urging of others, long after the instinctive
method they exemplify had become habitual.
These facts are the basis of my hope that
the book may be of use to those who have much
to do with children.
It would be impossible, in the space of any
pardonable preface, to name the teachers,
mothers, and librarians who have given me
hints and helps during the past few years of
story-telling. But I cannot let these pages go
to press without recording my especial
indebtedness to the few persons without whose interested
aid the little book would scarcely have
come to be. They are: Mrs Elizabeth Young
Rutan, at whose generous instance I first
enlarged my own field of entertaining story-telling
to include hers, of educational narrative, and
from whom I had many valuable suggestions
at that time; Miss Ella L. Sweeney, assistant
superintendent of schools, Providence, R.I.,
to whom I owe exceptional opportunities for
investigation and experiment; Mrs Root,
children's librarian of Providence Public
Library, and Miss Alice M. Jordan, Boston
Public Library, children's room, to whom I
am indebted for much gracious and efficient aid.
My thanks are due also to Mr David Nutt
for permission to make use of three stories from
English Fairy Tales, by Mr Joseph Jacobs, and
Raggylug, from Wild Animals I have Known,
by Mr Ernest Thompson Seton; to Messrs
Frederick A. Stokes Company for Five Little
White Heads, by Walter Learned, and for Bird
Thoughts; to Messrs Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner & Co. Ltd. for The Burning of the
Ricefields, from Gleanings in Buddha-Fields,
by Mr Lafcadio Hearn; to Messrs H. R. Allenson
Ltd. for three stories from The Golden
Windows, by Miss Laura E. Richards; and to
Mr Seumas McManus for Billy Beg and his Bull,
from In Chimney Corners.
S. C. B.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
The Story-teller's Art--Recent Revival--The Difference
between telling a Story and reading it aloud--Some
Reasons why the Former is more effective
CHAPTER I
THE PURPOSE OF STORY-TELLING IN SCHOOL
Its immediate Advantages to the Teacher-Its ultimate
Gifts to the Child
CHAPTER II
SELECTION OF STORIES TO TELL
The Qualities Children like, and why--Qualities
necessary for Oral Delivery--Examples: The Three
Bears, The Three Little Pigs, The Old Woman and
her Pig--Suggestions as to the Type of Story
especially useful in the several primary Grades--
Selected List of familiar Fairy Tales
CHAPTER III
ADAPTATION OF STORIES FOR TELLING
How to make a long Story short--How to fill out a
short Story--General Changes commonly desirable--
Examples: The Nurnberg Stove, by Ouida; The
King of the Golden River, by Ruskin; The Red Thread
of Courage, The Elf and the Dormouse--Analysis
of Method
CHAPTER IV
HOW TO TELL THE STORY
Essential Nature of the Story--Kind of Appreciation
necessary--Suggestions for gaining Mastery of Facts
--Arrangement of Children--The Story-teller's
Mood--A few Principles of Method, Manner and
Voice, from the Psychological Point of View
CHAPTER V
SOME SPECIFIC SCHOOLROOM USES
Exercise in Retelling--Illustrations cut by the
Children as Seat-work--Dramatic Games--Influence
of Games on Reading Classes
STORIES SELECTED AND ADAPTED FOR TELLING
ESPECIALLY FOR KINDERGARTEN AND CLASS I.
Nursery Rhymes
Five Little White Heads
Bird Thoughts
How we came to have Pink Roses
Raggylug
The Golden Cobwebs
Why the Morning-Glory climbs
The Story of Little Tavwots
The Pig Brother
The Cake
The Pied Piper of Hamelin Town
Why the Evergreen Trees keep their Leaves in Winter
The Star Dollars
The Lion and the Gnat
ESPECIALLY FOR CLASSES II. AND III.
The Cat and the Parrot
The Rat Princess
The Frog and the Ox
The Fire-Bringer
The Burning of the Ricefields
The Story of Wylie
Little Daylight
The Sailor Man
The Story of Jairus's Daughter
ESPECIALLY FOR CLASSES IV. AND V.
Arthur and the Sword
Tarpeia
The Buckwheat
The Judgment of Midas
Why the Sea is salt
Billy Beg and his Ball
The Little Hero of Haarlem
The Last Lesson
The Story of Christmas
THE CHILD-MIND; AND HOW TO SATISFY IT
A short List of Books in which the Story-teller will find
Stories not too far from the Form in which they are needed.
INTRODUCTION
Not long ago, I chanced to open a magazine
at a story of Italian life which dealt with a
curious popular custom. It told of the love of
the people for the performances of a strangely
clad, periodically appearing old man who was
a professional story-teller. This old man
repeated whole cycles of myth and serials of
popular history, holding his audience-chamber
in whatever corner of the open court or square
he happened upon, and always surrounded by
an eager crowd of listeners. So great was the
respect in which the story-teller was held, that
any interruption was likely to be resented with
violence.
As I read of the absorbed silence and the
changing expressions of the crowd about the
old man, I was suddenly reminded of a company
of people I had recently seen. They were
gathered in one of the parlours of a women's
college, and their serious young faces had,
habitually, none of the childlike responsiveness
of the Italian populace; they were suggestive,
rather, of a daily experience which precluded
over-much surprise or curiosity about anything.
In the midst of the group stood a frail-looking
woman with bright eyes. She was telling a
story, a children's story, about a good and a
bad little mouse.
She had been asked to do that thing, for a
purpose, and she did it, therefore. But it was
easy to see from the expressions of the listeners
how trivial a thing it seemed to them.
That was at first. But presently the room
grew quieter, and yet quieter. The faces relaxed
into amused smiles, sobered in unconscious
sympathy, finally broke in ripples of mirth.
The story-teller had come to her own.
The memory of the college girls listening to
the mouse-story brought other memories with
it. Many a swift composite view of faces passed
before my mental vision, faces with the child's
look on them, yet not the faces of children.
And of the occasions to which the faces
belonged, those were most vivid which were
earliest in my experience. For it was those early
experiences which first made me realise the
modern possibilities of the old, old art of telling
stories.
It had become a part of my work, some years
ago, to give English lectures on German literature.
Many of the members of my class were
unable to read in the original the works with
which I dealt, and as these were modern works,
it was rarely possible to obtain translations.
For this reason, I gradually formed the habit
of telling the story of the drama or novel in
question before passing to a detailed consideration
of it. I enjoyed this part of the lesson
exceedingly, but it was some time before I
realised how much the larger part of the lesson
it had become to the class. They used--and
they were mature women--to wait for the story
as if it were a sugarplum and they, children;
and to grieve openly if it were omitted.
Substitution of reading from a translation was
greeted with precisely the same abatement of
eagerness that a child shows when he has asked
you to tell a story, and you offer, instead, to
"read one from the pretty book." And so
general and constant were the tokens of
enjoyment that there could ultimately be no doubt
of the power which the mere story-telling
exerted.
The attitude of the grown-up listeners did
but illustrate the general difference between the
effect of telling a story and of reading one.
Everyone who knows children well has felt
the difference. With few exceptions, children
listen twice as eagerly to a story told as to one
read, and even a "recitation" or a so-called
"reading" has not the charm for them that
the person wields who can "tell a story." And
there are sound reasons for their preference.
The great difference, including lesser ones,
between telling and reading is that the teller
is free; the reader is bound. The book in hand,
or the wording of it in mind, binds the reader.
The story-teller is bound by nothing; he stands
or sits, free to watch his audience, free to follow
or lead every changing mood, free to use body,
eyes, voice, as aids in expression. Even his
mind is unbound, because he lets the story
come in the words of the moment, being so full
of what he has to say. For this reason, a story
told is more spontaneous than one read, however
well read. And, consequently, the connection
with the audience is closer, more electric, than is
possible when the book or its wording intervenes.
Beyond this advantage, is the added charm
of the personal element in story-telling. When
you make a story your own and tell it, the listener
gets the story, PLUS YOUR APPRECIATION
OF IT. It comes to him filtered through your
own enjoyment. That is what makes the funny
story thrice funnier on the lips of a jolly
raconteur than in the pages of a memoir. It is
the filter of personality. Everybody has something
of the curiosity of the primitive man
concerning his neighbour; what another has in
his own person felt and done has an especial
hold on each one of us. The most cultured of
audiences will listen to the personal reminiscences
of an explorer with a different tingle
of interest from that which it feels for a
scientific lecture on the results of the exploration.
The longing for the personal in experience is
a very human longing. And this instinct or
longing is especially strong in children. It
finds expression in their delight in tales of what
father or mother did when they were little, of
what happened to grandmother when she went
on a journey, and so on, but it also extends to
stories which are not in themselves personal:
which take their personal savour merely from
the fact that they flow from the lips in
spontaneous, homely phrases, with an appreciative
gusto which suggests participation.
The greater ease in holding the attention of
children is, for teachers, a sufficient practical
reason for telling stories rather than reading
them. It is incomparably easier to make the
necessary exertion of "magnetism," or whatever
it may be called, when nothing else distracts
the attention. One's eyes meet the
children's gaze naturally and constantly; one's
expression responds to and initiates theirs without
effort; the connection is immediate. For
the ease of the teacher, then, no less than for
the joy of the children, may the art of story-
telling be urged as pre-eminent over the art of
reading.
It is a very old, a very beautiful art. Merely
to think of it carries one's imaginary vision
to scenes of glorious and touching antiquity.
The tellers of the stories of which Homer's
Iliad was compounded; the transmitters of
the legend and history which make up the
Gesta Romanorum; the travelling raconteurs
whose brief heroic tales are woven into our
own national epic; the grannies of age-old
tradition whose stories are parts of Celtic folk-lore,
of Germanic myth, of Asiatio wonder-tales,--
these are but younger brothers and sisters
to the generations of story-tellers whose
inventions are but vaguely outlined in resultant
forms of ancient literatures, and the names of
whose tribes are no longer even guessed.
There was a time when story-telling was the
chiefest of the arts of entertainment; kings
and warriors could ask for nothing better;
serfs and children were satisfied with nothing
less. In all times there have been occasional
revivals of this pastime, and in no time has the
art died out in the simple human realms of which
mothers are queens. But perhaps never, since
the really old days, has story-telling so nearly
reached a recognised level of dignity as a legitimate
and general art of entertainment as now.
Its present popularity seems in a way to be
an outgrowth of the recognition of its educational
value which was given impetus by the
German pedagogues of Froebel's school. That
recognition has, at all events, been a noticeable
factor in educational conferences of late.
The function of the story is no longer
considered solely in the light of its place in the
kindergarten; it is being sought in the first,
the second, and indeed in every standard where
the children are still children. Sometimes the
demand for stories is made solely in the
interests of literary culture, sometimes in far
ampler and vaguer relations, ranging from
inculcation of scientific fact to admonition of
moral theory; but whatever the reason given,
the conclusion is the same: tell the children
stories.
The average teacher has yielded to the
pressure, at least in theory. Cheerfully, as she
has already accepted so many modifications of
old methods by "new thought," she accepts
the idea of instilling mental and moral desiderata
into the receptive pupil, via the charming
tale. But, confronted with the concrete
problem of what desideratum by which tale,
and how, the average teacher sometimes finds
her cheerfulness displaced by a sense of inadequacy
to the situation.
People who have always told stories to
children, who do not know when they began
or how they do it; whose heads are stocked
with the accretions of years of fairyland-
dwelling and nonsense-sharing,--these cannot
understand the perplexity of one to whom
the gift and the opportunity have not "come
natural." But there are many who can understand
it, personally and all too well. To these,
the teachers who have not a knack for story-
telling, who feel as shy as their own youngest
scholar at the thought of it, who do not know
where the good stories are, or which ones are
easy to tell, it is my earnest hope that the
following pages will bring something definite
and practical in the way of suggestion and
reference.
HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN
CHAPTER I
THE PURPOSE OF STORY-TELLING IN SCHOOL
Let us first consider together the primary
matter of the AIM in educational story-telling.
On our conception of this must depend very
largely all decisions as to choice and method;
and nothing in the whole field of discussion
is more vital than a just and sensible notion
of this first point. What shall we attempt
to accomplish by stories in the schoolroom?
What can we reasonably expect to accomplish?
And what, of this, is best accomplished by this
means and no other?
These are questions which become the more
interesting and practical because the recent
access of enthusiasm for stories in education
has led many people to claim very wide and
very vaguely outlined territory for their
possession, and often to lay heaviest stress on
their least essential functions. The most
important instance of this is the fervour with
which many compilers of stories for school
have directed their efforts solely toward
the ration of natural phenomena. Geology,
zoology, botany, and even physics are taught
by means of more or less happily constructed
narratives based on the simpler facts of these
sciences. Kindergarten teachers are familiar
with such narratives: the little stories of
chrysalis-breaking, flower-growth, and the like.
Now this is a perfectly proper and practicable
aim, but it is not a primary one. Others, to
which at best this is but secondary, should
have first place and receive greatest attention.
What is a story, essentially? Is it a textbook
of science, an appendix to the geography,
an introduction to the primer of history? Of
course it is not. A story is essentially and
primarily a work of art, and its chief function
must be sought in the line of the uses of art.
Just as the drama is capable of secondary uses,
yet fails abjectly to realise its purpose when
those are substituted for its real significance
as a work of art, so does the story lend itself
to subsidiary purposes, but claims first and
most strongly to be recognised in its real
significance as a work of art. Since the drama
deals with life in all its parts, it can exemplify
sociological theory, it can illustrate economic
principle, it can even picture politics; but the
drama which does these things only, has no
breath of its real life in its being, and dies
when the wind of popular tendency veers from
its direction. So, you can teach a child
interesting facts about bees and butterflies by telling
him certain stories, and you can open his eyes
to colours and processes in nature by telling
certain others; but unless you do something
more than that and before that, you are as
one who should use the Venus of Milo for a
demonstration in anatomy.
The message of the story is the message of
beauty, as effective as that message in marble
or paint. Its part in the economy of life is TO
GIVE JOY. And the purpose and working of the
joy is found in that quickening of the spirit
which answers every perception of the truly
beautiful in the arts of man. To give joy; in
and through the joy to stir and feed the life
of the spirit: is not this the legitimate function
of the story in education?
Because I believe it to be such, not because
I ignore the value of other uses, I venture to
push aside all aims which seem secondary to
this for later mention under specific heads.
Here in the beginning of our consideration I
wish to emphasise this element alone. A story
is a work of art. Its greatest use to the child
is in the everlasting appeal of beauty by which
the soul of man is constantly pricked to new
hungers, quickened to new perceptions and so
given desire to grow.
The obvious practical bearing of this is that
story-telling is first of all an art of entertainment;
like the stage, its immediate purpose is
the pleasure of the hearer,--his pleasure, not
his instruction, first.
Now the story-teller who has given the
listening children such pleasure as I mean may
or may not have added a fact to the content of
their minds, she has inevitably added something
to the vital powers of their souls. She
has given a wholesome exercise to the emotional
muscles of the spirit, has opened up new
windows to the imagination, and added some
line or colour to the ideal of life and art which
is always taking form in the heart of a child.
She has, in short, accomplished the one greatest
aim of story-telling,--to enlarge and enrich the
child's spiritual experience, and stimulate healthy
reaction upon it.
Of course this result cannot be seen and
proved as easily and early as can the apprehension
of a fact. The most one can hope to
recognise is its promise, and this is found in
the tokens of that genuine pleasure which is
itself the means of accomplishment. It is,
then, the signs of right pleasure which the
story-teller must look to for her guide, and
which it must be her immediate aim to evoke.
As for the recognition of the signs,--no one
who has ever seen the delight of a real child
over a real story can fail to know the signals
when given, or flatter himself into belief in
them when absent.
Intimately connected with the enjoyment
given are two very practically beneficial results
which the story-teller may hope to obtain, and
at least one of which will be a kind of reward
to herself. The first is a relaxation of the tense
schoolroom atmosphere, valuable for its refreshing
recreative power. The second result, or
aim, is not so obvious, but is even more
desirable; it is this: story-telling is at once one
of the simplest and quickest ways of establishing
a happy relation between teacher and
children, and one of the most effective methods
of forming the habit of fixed attention in the latter.
If you have never seen an indifferent child
aroused or a hostile one conquered to affection
by a beguiling tale, you can hardly appreciate
the truth of the first statement; but nothing
is more familiar in the story-teller's experience.
An amusing, but--to me--touching experience
recently reaffirmed in my mind this power of
the story to establish friendly relations.
My three-year-old niece, who had not seen
me since her babyhood, being told that Aunt
Sara was coming to visit her, somehow confused
the expected guest with a more familiar aunt,
my sister. At sight of me, her rush of welcome
relapsed into a puzzled and hurt withdrawal,
which yielded to no explanations or proffers of
affection. All the first day she followed me
about at a wistful distance, watching me as if
I might at any moment turn into the well-known
and beloved relative I ought to have been.
Even by undressing time I had not progressed
far enough to be allowed intimate approach to
small sacred nightgowns and diminutive shirts.
The next morning, when I opened the door of
the nursery where her maid was brushing her
hair, the same dignity radiated from the little
round figure perched on its high chair, the same
almost hostile shyness gazed at me from the
great expressive eyes. Obviously, it was time
for something to be done.
Disregarding my lack of invitation, I drew
up a stool, and seating myself opposite the
small unbending person, began in a conversational
murmur: "M--m, I guess those are
tingly-tanglies up there in that curl Lottie's
combing; did you ever hear about the tingly-
tanglies? They live in little girls' hair, and
they aren't any bigger than THAT, and when
anybody tries to comb the hair they curl both
weeny legs round, SO, and hold on tight with
both weeny hands, SO, and won't let go!" As
I paused, my niece made a queer little sound
indicative of query battling with reserve. I
pursued the subject: "They like best to live
right over a little girl's ear, or down in her neck,
because it is easier to hang on, there; tingly-
tanglies are very smart, indeed."
"What's ti-ly-ta-lies?" asked a curious,
guttural little voice.
I explained the nature and genesis of tingly-
tanglies, as revealed to me some decades before
by my inventive mother, and proceeded to
develop their simple adventures. When next I
paused the small guttural voice demanded,
"Say more," and I joyously obeyed.
When the curls were all curled and the last
little button buttoned, my baby niece climbed
hastily down from her chair, and deliberately up
into my lap. With a caress rare to her habit she
spoke my name, slowly and tentatively, "An-ty
Sai-ry?" Then, in an assured tone, "Anty Sairy,
I love you so much I don't know what to do!"
And, presently, tucking a confiding hand in
mine to lead me to breakfast, she explained
sweetly, "I didn' know you when you comed
las' night, but now I know you all th' time!"
"Oh, blessed tale," thought I, "so easy a
passport to a confidence so desired, so complete!"
Never had the witchery of the story to
the ear of a child come more closely home to
me. But the fact of the witchery was no new
experience. The surrender of the natural child
to the story-teller is as absolute and invariable
as that of a devotee to the priest of his own sect.
This power is especially valuable in the case
of children whose natural shyness has been
augmented by rough environment or by the
strangeness of foreign habit. And with such
children even more than with others it is also
true that the story is a simple and effective
means of forming the habit of concentration,
of fixed attention; any teacher who deals with
this class of children knows the difficulty of
doing this fundamental and indispensable thing,
and the value of any practical aid in doing it.
More than one instance of the power of story-
telling to develop attentiveness comes to my
mind, but the most prominent in memory is a
rather recent incident, in which the actors were
boys and girls far past the child-stage of docility.
I had been asked to tell stories to about
sixty boys and girls of a club; the president
warned me in her invitation that the children
were exceptionally undisciplined, but my previous
experiences with similar gatherings led me to
interpret her words with a moderation which
left me totally unready for the reality. When
I faced my audience, I saw a squirming jumble
of faces, backs of heads, and the various
members of many small bodies,--not a person
in the room was paying the slightest attention
to me; the president's introduction could
scarcely be said to succeed in interrupting the
interchange of social amenities which was in
progress, and which looked delusively like a
free fight. I came as near stage fright in the
first minutes of that occasion as it is comfortable
to be, and if it had not been impossible to
run away I think I should not have remained.
But I began, with as funny a tale as I knew,
following the safe plan of not speaking very
loudly, and aiming my effort at the nearest
children. As I went on, a very few faces held
intelligently to mine; the majority answered
only fitfully; and not a few of my hearers
conversed with their neighbours as if I were non-
existent. The sense of bafflement, the futile
effort, forced the perspiration to my hands and
face--yet something in the faces before me told
me that it was no ill-will that fought against
me; it was the apathy of minds without the
power or habit of concentration, unable to follow
a sequence of ideas any distance, and rendered
more restless by bodies which were probably
uncomfortable, certainly undisciplined.
The first story took ten minutes. When I
began a second, a very short one, the initial work
had to be done all over again, for the slight
comparative quiet I had won had been totally
lost in the resulting manifestation of approval.
At the end of the second story, the room
was really orderly to the superficial view, but
where I stood I could see the small boy who
deliberately made a hideous face at me each
time my eyes met his, the two girls who talked
with their backs turned, the squirms of a figure
here and there. It seemed so disheartening
a record of failure that I hesitated much to
yield to the uproarious request for a third story,
but finally I did begin again, on a very long story
which for its own sake I wanted them to hear.
This time the little audience settled to attention
almost at the opening words. After about
five minutes I was suddenly conscious of a
sense of ease and relief, a familiar restful feeling
in the atmosphere; and then, at last, I
knew that my audience was "with me," that
they and I were interacting without obstruction.
Absolutely quiet, entirely unconscious of
themselves, the boys and girls were responding to
every turn of the narrative as easily and readily
as any group of story-bred kindergarten children.
From then on we had a good time together.
The process which took place in that small
audience was a condensed example of what
one may expect in habitual story-telling to a
group of children. Once having had the attention
chained by crude force of interest, the
children begin to expect something interesting
from the teacher, and to wait for it. And
having been led step by step from one grade
of a logical sequence to another, their minds--
at first beguiled by the fascination of the steps
--glide into the habit of following any logical
sequence. My club formed its habit, as far as
I was concerned, all in one session; the ordinary
demands of school procedure lengthen the
process, but the result is equally sure. By the
end of a week in which the children have
listened happily to a story every day, the habit
of listening and deducing has been formed, and
the expectation of pleasantness is connected
with the opening of the teacher's lips.
These two benefits are well worth the trouble
they cost, and for these two, at least, any teacher
who tells a story well may confidently look--
the quick gaining of a confidential relation with
the children, and the gradual development of
concentration and interested attention in them.
These are direct and somewhat clearly
discernible results, comfortably placed in a near
future. There are other aims, reaching on into
the far, slow modes of psychological growth,
which must equally determine the choice of the
story-teller's material and inform the spirit of her
work. These other, less immediately attainable
ends, I wish now to consider in relation to the
different types of story by which they are severally
best served.
First, unbidden claimant of attention, comes
THE FAIRY STORY
No one can think of a child and a story,
without thinking of the fairy tale. Is this, as
some would have us believe, a bad habit of an
ignorant old world? Or can the Fairy Tale
justify her popularity with truly edifying and
educational results? Is she a proper person to
introduce here, and what are her titles to merit?
Oh dear, yes! Dame Fairy Tale comes bearing
a magic wand in her wrinkled old fingers,
with one wave of which she summons up that
very spirit of joy which it is our chief effort to
invoke. She raps smartly on the door, and open
sesames echo to every imagination. Her red-
heeled shoes twinkle down an endless lane of
adventures, and every real child's footsteps
quicken after. She is the natural, own great-
grandmother of every child in the world, and
her pocketfuls of treasures are his by right of
inheritance. Shut her out, and you truly rob
the children of something which is theirs;
something marking their constant kinship with the
race-children of the past, and adapted to their
needs as it was to those of the generation of long
ago! If there were no other criterion at all, it
would be enough that the children love the fairy
tale; we give them fairy stories, first, because they
like them. But that by no means lessens the
importance of the fact that fairy tales are also
good for them.
How good? In various ways. First, perhaps,
in their supreme power of presenting truth
through the guise of images. This is the way
the race-child took toward wisdom, and it is the
way each child's individual instinct takes, after
him. Elemental truths of moral law and general
types of human experience are presented in the
fairy tale, in the poetry of their images, and
although the child is aware only of the image
at the time, the truth enters with it and becomes
a part of his individual experience, to be recognised
in its relations at a later stage. Every
truth and type so given broadens and deepens
the capacity of the child's inner life, and adds
an element to the store from which he draws
his moral inferences.
The most familiar instance of a moral truth
conveyed under a fairy-story image is probably
the story of the pure-hearted and loving girl
whose lips were touched with the wonderful
power of dropping jewels with every spoken
word, while her stepsister, whose heart was
infested with malice and evil desires, let ugly
toads fall from her mouth whenever she spoke.
I mention the old tale because there is probably
no one of my readers who has not heard it in
childhood, and because there are undoubtedly
many to whose mind it has often recurred in
later life as a sadly perfect presentment of the
fact that "out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaketh." That story has entered into
the forming consciousness of many of us, with
its implications of the inevitable result of visible
evil from evil in the heart, and its revelation of
the loathsomeness of evil itself.
And no less truly than this story has served
to many as an embodiment of moral law has
another household tale stood for a type of
common experience. How much the poorer
should we be, mentally, without our early
prophecy of the "ugly ducklings" we are to meet
later in life!--those awkward offspring of our
little human duckyard who are mostly well
kicked and buffeted about, for that very length
of limb and breadth of back which needs must
be, to support swan's wings. The story of the
ugly duckling is much truer than many a bald
statement of fact. The English-speaking world
bears witness to its verity in constant use of the
title as an identifying phrase: "It is the old
story of the ugly duckling," we say, or "He has
turned out a real ugly duckling." And we know
that our hearers understand the whole situation.
The consideration of such familiar types and
expressions as that of the ugly duckling suggests
immediately another good reason for giving the
child his due of fairy lore. The reason is that
to omit it is to deprive him of one important
element in the full appreciation of mature literature.
If one thinks of it, one sees that nearly
all adult literature is made by people who, in
their beginnings, were bred on the wonder
tale. Whether he will or no, the grown-up
author must incorporate into his work the
tendencies, memories, kinds of feeling which were
his in childhood. The literature of maturity
is, naturally, permeated by the influence of the
literature of childhood. Sometimes it is apparent
merely in the use of a name, as suggestive of
certain kinds of experience; such are the
recurrences of reference to the Cinderella story.
Sometimes it is an allusion which has its strength
in long association of certain qualities with
certain characters in fairydom--like the slyness of
Brother Fox, and the cruelty of Brother Wolf.
Sometimes the association of ideas lies below
the surface, drawing from the hidden wells of
poetic illusion which are sunk in childhood.
The man or woman whose infancy was nourished
exclusively on tales adapted from science-made-
easy, or from biographies of good men and great,
must remain blind to these beauties of literature.
He may look up the allusion, or identify the
reference, but when that is done he is but richer
by a fact or two; there is no remembered thrill
in it for him, no savour in his memory, no
suggestion to his imagination; and these are
precisely the things which really count. Leaving
out the fairy element is a loss to literary culture
much as would be the omission of the Bible or
of Shakespeare. Just as all adult literature is
permeated by the influence of these, familiar in
youth, so in less degree is it transfused with the
subtle reminiscences of childhood's commerce
with the wonder world.
To turn now from the inner to the outer aspects
of the old-time tale is to meet another cause of
its value to children. This is the value of its
style. Simplicity, directness, and virility
characterise the classic fairy tales and the most
memorable relics of folklore. And these are
three of the very qualities which are most seriously
lacking in much of the new writing for
children, and which are always necessary elements
in the culture of taste. Fairy stories
are not all well told, but the best fairy stories
are supremely well told. And most folk-tales
have a movement, a sweep, and an unaffectedness
which make them splendid foundations for
taste in style.
For this, and for poetic presentation of truths
in easily assimilated form, and because it gives
joyous stimulus to the imagination, and is necessary
to full appreciation of adult literature, we
may freely use the wonder tale.
Closely related to, sometimes identical with,
the fairy tale is the old, old source of children's
love and laughter,
THE NONSENSE TALE
Under this head I wish to include all the
merely funny tales of childhood, embracing the
cumulative stories like that of the old woman
and the pig which would not go over the stile.
They all have a specific use and benefit, and are
worth the repetition children demand for them.
Their value lies, of course, in the tonic and
relaxing properties of humour. Nowhere is that
property more welcome or needed than in the
schoolroom. It does us all good to laugh, if
there is no sneer nor smirch in the laugh; fun
sets the blood flowing more freely in the veins,
and loosens the strained cords of feeling and
thought; the delicious shock of surprise at every
"funny spot" is a kind of electric treatment for
the nerves. But it especially does us good to
laugh when we are children. Every little body
is released from the conscious control school
imposes on it, and huddles into restful comfort
or responds gaily to the joke.
More than this, humour teaches children, as
it does their grown-up brethren, some of the
facts and proportions of life. What keener
teacher is there than the kindly satire? What
more penetrating and suggestive than the humour
of exaggerated statement of familiar tendency?
Is there one of us who has not laughed himself
out of some absurd complexity of over-anxiety
with a sudden recollection of "clever Alice"
and her fate? In our household clever Alice is
an old habituee, and her timely arrival has saved
many a situation which was twining itself about
more "ifs" than it could comfortably support.
The wisdom which lies behind true humour is
found in the nonsense tale of infancy as truly as
in mature humour, but in its own kind and
degree. "Just for fun" is the first reason for the
humorous story; the wisdom in the fun is the
second.
And now we come to
THE NATURE STORY
No other type of fiction is more familiar to
the teacher, and probably no other kind is the
source of so much uncertainty of feeling. The
nature story is much used, as I have noticed
above, to illustrate or to teach the habits of
animals and the laws of plant-growth; to stimulate
scientific interest as well as to increase
culture in scientific fact. This is an entirely
legitimate object. In view of its present
preponderance, it is certainly a pity, however, that
so few stories are available, the accuracy of
which, from this point of view, can be vouched
for. The carefully prepared book of to-day is
refuted and scoffed at to-morrow. The teacher
who wishes to use story-telling chiefly as an
element in nature study must at least limit herself
to a small amount of absolutely unquestioned
material, or else subject every new story to the
judgment of an authority in the line dealt with.
This is not easy for the teacher at a distance
from the great libraries, and for those who have
access to well-equipped libraries it is a matter
of time and thought.
It does not so greatly trouble the teacher who
uses the nature story as a story, rather than as
a test-book, for she will not be so keenly attracted
toward the books prepared with a didactic purpose.
She will find a good gift for the child in
nature stories which ARE stories, over and above
any stimulus to his curiosity about fact. That
good gift is a certain possession of all good fiction.
One of the best things good fiction does for
any of us is to broaden our comprehension of
other lots than our own. The average man or
woman has little opportunity actually to live
more than one kind of life. The chances of
birth, occupation, family ties, determine for
most of us a line of experience not very
inclusive and but little varied; and this is a natural
barrier to our complete understanding of others,
whose life-line is set at a different angle. It is
not possible wholly to sympathise with emotions
engendered by experience which one has never
had. Yet we all long to be broad in sympathy
and inclusive in appreciation; we long, greatly,
to know the experience of others. This yearning
is probably one of the good but misconceived
appetites so injudiciously fed by the gossip of
the daily press. There is a hope, in the reader,
of getting for the moment into the lives of people
who move in wholly different sets of circumstances.
But the relation of dry facts in newspapers,
however tinged with journalistic colour,
helps very little to enter such other life. The
entrance has to be by the door of the imagination,
and the journalist is rarely able to open it
for us. But there is a genius who can open it.
The author who can write fiction of the right
sort can do it; his is the gift of seeing inner
realities, and of showing them to those who
cannot see them for themselves. Sharing the
imaginative vision of the story-writer, we can
truly follow out many other roads of life than
our own. The girl on a lone country farm is
made to understand how a girl in a city sweating-
den feels and lives; the London exquisite realises
the life of a Californian ranchman; royalty and
tenement dwellers become acquainted, through
the power of the imagination working on
experience shown in the light of a human basis
common to both. Fiction supplies an element
of culture,--that of the sympathies, which is
invaluable. And the beginnings of this culture,
this widening and clearing of the avenues of
human sympathy, are especially easily made
with children in the nature story.
When you begin, "There was once a little
furry rabbit,"[1] the child's curiosity is awakened
by the very fact that the rabbit is not a child,
but something of a different species altogether.
"Now for something new and adventuresome,"
says his expectation, "we are starting off into a
foreign world." He listens wide-eyed, while
you say, "and he lived in a warm, cosy nest,
down under the long grass with his mother"--
how delightful, to live in a place like that; so
different from little boys' homes!--"his name
was Raggylug, and his mother's name was Molly
Cottontail. And every morning, when Molly
Cottontail went out to get their food, she said
to Raggylug, `Now, Raggylug, remember you
are only a baby rabbit, and don't move from the
nest. No matter what you hear, no matter what
you see, don't you move!'"--all this is different
still, yet it is familiar, too; it appears that rabbits
are rather like folks. So the tale proceeds, and
the little furry rabbit passes through experiences
strange to little boys, yet very like little boys'
adventures in some respects; he is frightened
by a snake, comforted by his mammy, and taken
to a new house, under the long grass a long way
off. These are all situations to which the child
has a key. There is just enough of strangeness
to entice, just enough of the familiar to relieve
any strain. When the child has lived through
the day's happenings with Raggylug, the latter
has begun to seem veritably a little brother of
the grass to him. And because he has entered
imaginatively into the feelings and fate of a
creature different from himself, he has taken his
first step out into the wide world of the lives of
others.
[1] See Raggylug.
It may be a recognition of this factor and
its value which has led so many writers of
nature stories into the error of over-humanising
their four-footed or feathered heroes and
heroines. The exaggeration is unnecessary, for
there is enough community of lot suggested in
the sternest scientific record to constitute a
natural basis for sympathy on the part of the
human animal. Without any falsity of
presentation whatever, the nature story may be
counted on as a help in the beginnings of culture
of the sympathies. It is not, of course, a help
confined to the powers of the nature story; all
types of story share in some degree the powers
of each. But each has some especial virtue in
dominant degree, and the nature story is, on this
ground, identified with the thought given.
The nature story shares its influence especially
with
THE HISTORICAL STORY
As the one widens the circle of connection
with other kinds of life, the other deepens the
sense of relation to past lives; it gives the sense
of background, of the close and endless connection
of generation with generation. A good
historical story vitalises the conception of past
events and brings their characters into relation
with the present. This is especially true of
stories of things and persons in the history of
our own race. They foster race-consciousness,
the feeling of kinship and community of blood.
It is this property which makes the historical
story so good an agent for furthering a proper
national pride in children. Genuine patriotism,
neither arrogant nor melodramatic, is so generally
recognised as having its roots in early
training that I need not dwell on this possibility,
further than to note its connection with the
instinct of hero-worship which is quick in the
healthy child. Let us feed that hunger for the
heroic which gnaws at the imagination of every
boy and of more girls than is generally admitted.
There have been heroes in plenty in the world's
records,--heroes of action, of endurance, of
decision, of faith. Biographical history is full
of them. And the deeds of these heroes are
every one a story. We tell these stories, both
to bring the great past into its due relation with
the living present, and to arouse that generous
admiration and desire for emulation which is
the source of so much inspiration in childhood.
When these stories are tales of the doings and
happenings of our own heroes, the strong men
and women whose lives are a part of our
own country's history, they serve the double
demands of hero-worship and patriotism.
Stories of wise and honest statesmanship, of
struggle with primitive conditions, of generous
love and sacrifice, and--in some measure--of
physical courage, form a subtle and powerful
influence for pride in one's people, the intimate
sense of kinship with one's own nation, and the
desire to serve it in one's own time.
It is not particularly useful to tell batches of
unrelated anecdote. It is much more profitable
to take up the story of a period and connect it
with a group of interesting persons whose lives
affected it or were affected by it, telling the
stories of their lives, or of the events in which
they were concerned, as "true stories." These
biographical stories must, usually, be adapted
for use. But besides these there is a certain
number of pure stories--works of art--which
already exist for us, and which illuminate facts
and epochs almost without need of sidelights.
Such may stand by themselves, or be used with
only enough explanation to give background.
Probably the best story of this kind known to
lovers of modern literature is Daudet's famous
La Derniere Classe.[1]
[1] See The Last Lesson.
The historical story, to recapitulate, gives a
sense of the reality and humanness of past events,
is a valuable aid in patriotic training, and stirs
the desire of emulating goodness and wisdom.
CHAPTER II
SELECTION OF STORIES TO TELL
There is one picture which I can always review,
in my own collection of past scenes, though
many a more highly coloured one has been
irrevocably curtained by the folds of forgetfulness.
It is the picture of a little girl, standing
by an old-fashioned marble-topped dressing
table in a pink, sunny room. I can never see
the little girl's face, because, somehow, I am
always looking down at her short skirts or
twisting my head round against the hand which
patiently combs her stubborn curls. But I can
see the brushes and combs on the marble table
quite plainly, and the pinker streaks of sun on
the pink walls. And I can hear. I can hear a
low, wonder-working voice which goes smoothly
on and on, as the fingers run up the little girl's
locks or stroke the hair into place on her fore
head. The voice says, "And little Goldilocks
came to a little bit of a house. And she opened
the door and went in. It was the house where
three Bears lived; there was a great Bear, a
little Bear, and a middle-sized Bear; and they
had gone out for a walk. Goldilocks went in,
and she saw"--the little girl is very still; she
would not disturb that story by so much as a
loud breath; but presently the comb comes to
a tangle, pulls,--and the little girl begins to
squirm. Instantly the voice becomes impressive,
mysterious: "she went up to the table, and
there were THREE PLATES OF PORRIDGE. She tasted
the first one"--the little girl swallows the breath
she was going to whimper with, and waits--"and
it was too hot! She tasted the next one,
and THAT was too hot. Then she tasted the little
bit of a plate, and that--was--just--right!"
How I remember the delightful sense of
achievement which stole into the little girl's
veins when the voice behind her said "just
right." I think she always chuckled a little,
and hugged her stomach. So the story progressed,
and the little girl got through her toilet
without crying, owing to the wonder-working
voice and its marvellous adaptation of climaxes
to emergencies. Nine times out of ten, it was the
story of The Three Bears she demanded when,
with the appearance of brush and comb, the voice
asked, "Which story shall mother tell?"
It was a memory of the little girl in the
pink room which made it easy for me to understand
some other children's preferences when
I recently had occasion to inquire about them.
By asking many individual children which story
of all they had heard they liked best, by taking
votes on the best story of a series, after telling
it, and by getting some obliging teachers to put
similar questions to their pupils, I found three
prime favourites common to a great many children
of about the kindergarten age. They were The
Three Bears, Three Little Pigs, and The Little Pig
that wouldn't go over the Stile.
Some of the teachers were genuinely
disturbed because the few stories they had
introduced merely for amusement had taken so pre-
eminent a place in the children's affection over
those which had been given seriously. It was
of no use, however, to suggest substitutes.
The children knew definitely what they liked,
and though they accepted the recapitulation
of scientific and moral stories with polite
approbation, they returned to the original answer
at a repetition of the question.
Inasmuch as the slightest of the things we
hope to do for children by means of stories is
quite impossible unless the children enjoy the
stories, it may be worth our while to consider
seriously these three which they surely do enjoy,
to see what common qualities are in them,
explanatory of their popularity, by which we
may test the probable success of other stories
we wish to tell.
Here they are,--three prime favourites of
proved standing.
THE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS[1]
[1] Adapted from Joseph Jacobs's English Fairy Tales (David
Nutt, 57-69 Long Acre, W.C. 6s.),
Once upon a time there were three little pigs,
who went from home to seek their fortune.
The first that went off met a man with a bundle
of straw, and said to him:--
"Good man, give me that straw to build
me a house."
The man gave the straw, and the little pig
built his house with it. Presently came along
a wolf, and knocked at the door, and said:--
"Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
But the pig answered:--
"No, no, by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin."
So the wolf said:--
"Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow
your house in."
So he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew his
house in, and ate up the little pig.
The second little pig met a man with a
bundle of furze, and said:--
"Good man, give me that furze to build me
a house."
The man gave the furze, and the pig built his
house. Then once more came the wolf, and said:
"Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
" No, no, by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin."
"Then I'll puff, and I'll huff, and I'll blow
your house in."
So he huffed, and he puffed, and he puffed
and he huffed, and at last he blew the house in,
and ate up the little pig.
The third little pig met a man with a load of
bricks, and said:--
"Good man, give me those bricks to build
me a house with."
The man gave the bricks, and he built his
house with them. Again the wolf came, and
said:--
"Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
"No, no, by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin."
"Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow
your house in."
So he huffed, and he puffed, and he huffed,
and he puffed, and he puffed and huffed; but
he could NOT get the house down. Finding that
he could not, with all his huffing and puffing,
blow the house down, he said:--
"Little pig, I know where there is a nice
field of turnips."
"Where?" said the little pig.
"Oh, in Mr Smith's field, and if you will be
ready to-morrow morning we will go together,
and get some for dinner."
"Very well," said the little pig. "What
time do you mean to go?"
"Oh, at six o'clock."
So the little pig got up at five, and got the
turnips before the wolf came crying:--
"Little pig, are you ready?"
The little pig said: "Ready! I have been and
come back again, and got a nice potful for dinner."
The wolf felt very angry at this, but thought
that he would be a match for the little pig
somehow or other, so he said:--
"Little pig, I know where there is a nice
apple-tree."
"Where?" said the pig.
"Down at Merry-garden," replied the wolf,
"and if you will not deceive me I will come for you,
at five o'clock to-morrow, and get some apples."
The little pig got up next morning at four
o'clock, and went off for the apples, hoping to
get back before the wolf came; but it took long
to climb the tree, and just as he was coming
down from it, he saw the wolf coming. When
the wolf came up he said:--
"Little pig, what! are you here before me?
Are they nice apples?"
"Yes, very," said the little pig. "I will throw
you down one."
And he threw it so far that, while the wolf
was gone to pick it up, the little pig jumped
down and ran home. The next day the wolf
came again, and said to the little pig:--
"Little pig, there is a fair in town this
afternoon; will you go?'
"Oh yes," said the pig, "I will go; what time?"
"At three," said the wolf. As usual the
little pig went off before the time, and got to
the fair, and bought a butter-churn, which he
was rolling home when he saw the wolf coming.
So he got into the churn to hide, and in so
doing turned it round, and it rolled down the
hill with the pig in it, which frightened the wolf
so much that he ran home without going to the
fair. He went to the little pig's house, and told
him how frightened he had been by a great
round thing which came past him down the hill.
Then the little pig said.--
"Ha! ha! I frightened you, then!"
Then the wolf was very angry indeed, and
tried to get down the chimney in order to eat
up the little pig. When the little pig saw what
he was about, he put a pot full of water on the
blazing fire, and, just as the wolf was coming
down, he took off the cover, and in fell the wolf.
Quickly the little pig clapped on the cover, and
when the wolf was boiled ate him for supper.
THE STORY OF THE THREE BEARS[1]
[1] Adapted from Joseph Jacobs's English Fairy Tales (David
Nutt, 57-59 Long Acre, W.C. 6s.)
Once upon a time there were Three Bears,
who lived together in a house of their own, in a
wood. One of them was a Little Small Wee
Bear, and one was a Middle-sized Bear, and the
other was a Great Huge Bear. They had each
a pot for their porridge,--a little pot for the
Little Small Wee Bear, and a middle-sized pot
for the Middle-sized Bear, and a great pot for
the Great Huge Bear. And they had each a
chair to sit in,--a little chair for the Little
Small Wee Bear, and a middle-sized chair for
the Middle-sized Bear, and a great chair for the
Great Huge Bear. And they had each a bed
to sleep in,--a little bed for the Little Small
Wee Bear, and a middle-sized bed for the
Middle-sized Bear, and a great bed for the Great
Huge Bear.
One day, after they had made the porridge
for their breakfast, and poured it into their
porridge-pots, they walked out into the wood
while the porridge was cooling, that they might
not burn their mouths, by beginning too soon to
eat it. And while they were walking, a little
girl named Goldilocks came to the house. She
had never seen the little house before, and it
was such a strange little house that she forgot
all the things her mother had told her about
being polite: first she looked in at the window,
and then she peeped in at the keyhole; and
seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch.
The door was not fastened, because the Bears
were good Bears, who did nobody any harm,
and never suspected that anybody would harm
them. So Goldilocks opened the door, and
went in; and well pleased she was when she
saw the porridge on the table. If Goldilocks
had remembered what her mother had told her,
she would have waited till the Bears came
home, and then, perhaps, they would have asked
her to breakfast; for they were good Bears--a
little rough, as the manner of Bears is, but for
all that very good-natured and hospitable. But
Goldilocks forgot, and set about helping herself.
So first she tasted the porridge of the Great
Huge Bear, and that was too hot. And then
she tasted the porridge of the Middle-sized
Bear, and that was too cold. And then she
went to the porridge of the Little Small Wee
Bear, and tasted that: and that was neither too
hot nor too cold, but just right; and she liked
it so well, that she ate it all up.
Then Goldilocks sat down in the chair of
the Great Huge Bear, and that was too hard
for her. And then she sat down in the chair
of the Middle-sized Bear, and that was too
soft for her. And then she sat down in the
chair of the Little Small Wee Bear, and that
was neither too hard nor too soft, but just
right. So she seated herself in it, and there
she sat till the bottom of the chair came out,
and down she came, plump upon the ground.
Then Goldilocks went upstairs into the bed-
chamber in which the Three Bears slept. And
first she lay down upon the bed of the Great
Huge Bear; but that was too high at the head
for her. And next she lay down upon the bed
of the Middle-sized Bear, and that was too high
at the foot for her. And then she lay down upon
the bed of the Little Small Wee Bear; and that
was neither too high at the head nor at the
foot, but just right. So she covered herself up
comfortably, and lay there till she fell fast asleep.
By this time the Three Bears thought their
porridge would be cool enough; so they came
home to breakfast. Now Goldilocks had left
the spoon of the Great Huge Bear standing
in his porridge.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN AT MY
PORRIDGE!" said the Great Huge Bear, in
his great, rough, gruff voice. And when the
Middle-sized Bear looked at his, he saw that
the spoon was standing in it too.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN AT MY PORRIDGE!"
said the Middle-sized Bear, in his middle-sized
voice.
Then the Little Small Wee Bear looked at
his, and there was the spoon in the porridge-
pot, but the porridge was all gone.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN AT MY PORRIDGE, AND
HAS EATEN IT ALL UP!" said the Little Small
Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.
Upon this, the Three Bears, seeing that someone
had entered their house, and eaten up the
Little Small Wee Bear's breakfast, began to
look about them. Now Goldilocks had not
put the hard cushion straight when she rose
from the chair of the Great Huge Bear.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN SITTING IN
MY CHAIR!" said the Great Huge Bear, in
his great, rough, gruff voice.
And Goldilocks had crushed down the soft
cushion of the Middle-sized Bear.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY CHAIR!"
said the Middle-sized Bear, in his middle-sized
voice.
And you know what Goldilocks had done to
the third chair.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY CHAIR AND
HAS SAT THE BOTTOM OUT OF IT!" said the Little
Small Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.
Then the Three Bears thought it necessary
that they should make further search; so they
went upstairs into their bed-chamber. Now
Goldilocks had pulled the pillow of the Great
Huge Bear out of its place.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN LYING IN
MY BED!" said the Great Huge Bear, in his
great, rough, gruff voice.
And Goldilocks had pulled the bolster of the
Middle-sized Bear out of its place.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN LYING IN MY BED!"
said the Middle-sized Bear, in his middle-sized
voice.
And when the Little Small Wee Bear came
to look at his bed, there was the bolster in
its place; and the pillow in its place upon the
bolster; and upon the pillow was the shining,
yellow hair of little Goldilocks!
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN LYING IN MY BED,--
AND HERE SHE IS!" said the Little Small Wee
Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.
Goldilocks had heard in her sleep the great,
rough, gruff voice of the Great Huge Bear;
but she was so fast asleep that it was no more
to her than the roaring of wind or the rumbling
of thunder. And she had heard the
middle-sized voice of the Middle-sized Bear,
but it was only as if she had heard someone
speaking in a dream. But when she heard the
little, small, wee voice of the Little Small Wee
Bear, it was so sharp, and so shrill, that it
awakened her at once. Up she started, and
when she saw the Three Bears on one side
of the bed, she tumbled herself out at the
other, and ran to the window. Now the window
was open, because the Bears, like good,
tidy Bears as they were, always opened their
bed-chamber window when they got up in the
morning.
Out little Goldilocks jumped, and ran away
home to her mother, as fast as ever she
could.
THE OLD WOMAN AND HER PIG[1]
[1] Adapted from Joseph Jacobs's English Fairy Tales (David
Nutt, 57-59 Long Acre, W.C. 6s.).
It happened one day that as an old woman
was sweeping her house she found a little
crooked sixpence. "What," said she, "shall I
do with this little sixpence? I will go to
market, and buy a little pig."
On the way home she came to a stile; but
the piggy wouldn't go over the stile.
So she left the piggy and went on a little
further, till she met a dog. She said to him,
"Dog, dog, bite pig; piggy won't go over the
stile; and I sha'n't get home to-night." But the
dog wouldn't bite piggy.
A little further on she met a stick. So she
said: "Stick! stick! beat dog! dog won't bite
pig; piggy won't go over the stile; and I sha'n't
get home to-night." But the stick wouldn't
beat the dog.
A little further on she met a fire. So she
said: "Fire! fire! burn stick! stick won't beat
dog; dog won't bite pig; piggy won't get over
the stile; and I sha'n't get home to-night." But
the fire wouldn't burn the stick.
A little further on she met some water. So
she said: "Water! water! quench fire; fire
won't burn stick; stick won't beat dog; dog
won't bite pig; piggy won't get over the stile;
and I sha'n't get home to-night." But the water
wouldn't quench the fire.
A little further on she met an ox. So she
said: "Ox! ox! drink water; water won't
quench fire; fire won't burn stick; stick won't
beat dog; dog won't bite pig; piggy won't get
over the stile; and I sha'n't get home to-night."
But the ox wouldn't drink the water.
A little further on she met a butcher. So
she said: "Butcher! butcher! kill ox; ox won't
drink water; water won't quench fire; fire
won't burn stick; stick won't beat dog; dog
won't bite pig; piggy won't get over the stile;
and I sha'n't get home to-night." But the
butcher wouldn't kill the ox.
A little further on she met a rope. So she
said: "Rope! rope! hang butcher; butcher
won't kill ox; ox won't drink water; water
won't quench fire; fire won't burn stick; stick
won't beat dog; dog won't bite pig; piggy won't
get over the stile; and I sha'n't get home to-
night." But the rope wouldn't hang the butcher.
A little further on she met a rat. So she
said: "Rat! rat! gnaw rope; rope won't hang
butcher; butcher won't kill ox; ox won't drink
water; water won't quench fire; fire won't
burn stick; stick won't beat dog; dog won't
bite pig; piggy won't get over the stile; and I
sha'n't get home to- night." But the rat wouldn't
gnaw the rope.
A little further on she met a cat. So she
said: "Cat! cat! kill rat; rat won't gnaw rope;
rope won't hang butcher; butcher won't kill
ox; ox won't drink water; water won't quench
fire; fire won't burn stick; stick won't beat
dog; dog won't bite pig; piggy won't get over
the stile; and I sha'n't get home to-night." But
the cat said to her, "If you will go to yonder
cow, and fetch me a saucer of milk, I will kill the
rat." So away went the old woman to the cow.
But the cow refused to give the milk unless
the old woman first gave her a handful of hay.
So away went the old woman to the haystack;
and she brought the hay to the cow.
When the cow had eaten the hay, she gave
the old woman the milk; and away she went
with it in a saucer to the cat.
As soon as it had lapped up the milk, the cat
began to kill the rat; the rat began to gnaw the
rope; the rope began to hang the butcher; the
butcher began to kill the ox; the ox began to
drink the water; the water began to quench
the fire; the fire began to burn the stick; the
stick began to beat the dog; the dog began to
bite the pig; the little pig in a fright jumped
over the stile; and so the old woman did get
home that night.
The briefest examination of these three
stories reveals the fact that one attribute
beyond dispute in each. Something happens,
all the time. Every step in each story is an
event. There is no time spent in explanation,
description, or telling how people felt; the
stories tell what people did, and what they said.
And the events are the links of a sequence of
the closest kind; in point of time and of cause
they follow as immediately as it is possible for
events to follow. There are no gaps, and no
complications of plot requiring a return on the road.
A second common characteristic appears on
briefest examination. As you run over the
little stories you will see that each event
presents a distinct picture to the imagination, and
that these pictures are made out of very simple
elements. The elements are either familiar to
the child or analogous to familiar ones. Each
object and happening is very like everyday,
yet touched with a subtle difference, rich in
mystery. For example, the details of the
pictures in the Goldilocks story are parts of
everyday life,--house, chairs, beds, and so on;
but they are the house, chairs, and beds of three
bears; that is the touch of marvel which transforms
the scene. The old woman who owned
the obstinate pig is the centre of a circle in
which stand only familiar images,--stick, fire,
water, cow, and the rest; but the wonder enters
with the fact that these usually inanimate or
dumb objects of nature enter so humanly into
the contest of wills. So it is, also, with the
doings of the three little pigs. Every image
is explicable to the youngest hearer, while none
suggests actual familiarity, because the actors
are not children, but pigs. Simplicity, with
mystery, is the keynote of all the pictures, and
these are clear and distinct.
Still a third characteristic common to the
stories quoted is a certain amount of repetition.
It is more definite, and of what has been called
the "cumulative" kind, in the story of the old
woman; but in all it is a distinctive feature.
Here we have, then, three marked characteristics
common to three stories almost invariably
loved by children,--action, in close sequence;
familiar images, tinged with mystery; some
degree of repetition.
It is not hard to see why these qualities
appeal to a child. The first is the prime
characteristic of all good stories,--"stories as
is stories"; the child's demand for it but bears
witness to the fact that his instinctive taste is
often better than the taste he later develops
under artificial culture. The second is a matter
of common-sense. How could the imagination
create new worlds, save out of the material of
the old? To offer strange images is to confuse
the mind and dull the interest; to offer familiar
ones "with a difference" is to pique the interest
and engage the mind.
The charm of repetition, to children, is a
more complex matter; there are undoubtedly
a good many elements entering into it, hard to
trace in analysis. But one or two of the more
obvious may be seized and brought to view.
The first is the subtle flattery of an unexpected
sense of mastery. When the child-mind, following
with toilful alertness a new train of thought,
comes suddenly on a familiar epithet or expression,
I fancy it is with much the same sense of
satisfaction that we older people feel when in
the midst of a long programme of new music
the orchestra strikes into something we have
heard before,--Handel, maybe, or one of the
more familiar Beethoven sonatas. "I know
that! I have heard that before!" we think,
triumphant, and settle down to enjoyment
without effort. So it is, probably, with the
"middle-sized" articles of the bears' house and
the "and I sha'n't get home to-night" of the
old woman. Each recurrence deepens the note
of familiarity, tickles the primitive sense of
humour, and eases the strain of attention.
When the repetition is cumulative, like the
extreme instance of The House that Jack
Built, I have a notion that the joy of the
child is the pleasure of intellectual gymnastics,
not too hard for fun, but not too easy for
excitement. There is a deal of fun to be got
out of purely intellectual processes, and child-
hood is not too soon for the rudiments of such
fun to show. The delight the healthy adult
mind takes in working out a neat problem in
geometry, the pleasure a musician finds in
following the involutions of a fugue, are of
the same type of satisfaction as the liking of
children for cumulative stories. Complexity
and mass, arrived at by stages perfectly
intelligible in themselves, mounting steadily from
a starting-point of simplicity; then the same
complexity and mass resolving itself as it were
miraculously back into simplicity, this is an
intellectual joy. It does not differ materially,
whether found in the study of counterpoint,
at thirty, or in the story of the old woman and
her pig, at five. It is perfectly natural and
wholesome, and it may perhaps be a more
powerful developing force for the budding
intellect than we are aware.
For these reasons let me urge you, when you
are looking for stories to tell little children, to
apply this threefold test as a kind of touchstone
to their quality of fitness: Are they full of
action, in close natural sequence? Are their
images simple without being humdrum? Are
they repetitive? The last quality is not an
absolute requisite; but it is at least very often
an attribute of a good child-story.
Having this touchstone in mind for general
selection, we can now pass to the matter of
specific choices for different ages of children.
No one can speak with absolute conviction in
this matter, so greatly do the taste and capacity
of children of the same age vary. Any approach
to an exact classification of juvenile books
according to their suitability for different ages
will be found impossible. The same book in
the hands of a skilful narrator may be made
to afford delight to children both of five and
ten. The following are merely the inferences
drawn from my own experience. They must
be modified by each teacher according to the
conditions of her small audience. In general,
I believe it to be wise to plan the choice of
stories much as indicated in the table.
At a later stage, varying with the standard
of capacity of different classes, we find the
temper of mind which asks continually, "Is
that true?" To meet this demand, one draws
on historical and scientific anecdote, and on
reminiscence. But the demand is never so
exclusive that fictitious narrative need be cast
aside. All that is necessary is to state frankly
that the story you are telling is "just a story,"
or--if it be the case--that it is "part true and
part story."
At all stages I would urge the telling of
Bible stories, as far as is allowed by the special
circumstances of the school. These are stories
from a source unsurpassed in our literature for
purity of style and loftiness of subject. More
especially I urge the telling of the Christ-story,
in such parts as seem likely to be within the
grasp of the several classes. In all Bible
stories it is well to keep as near as possible
to the original unimprovable text.[1] Some
amplification can be made, but no excessive
modernising or simplifying is excusable in face
of the austere grace and majestic simplicity of
the original. Such adaptation as helps to cut
the long narrative into separate units, making
each an intelligible story, I have ventured to
illustrate according to my own personal taste,
in two stories given in Chapter VI. The object
of the usual modernising or enlarging of the
text may be far better attained for the child
listener by infusing into the text as it stands
a strong realising sense of its meaning and
vitality, letting it give its own message through
a fit medium of expression.
[1] Stories from the Old Testament, by S. Platt, retells the Old
Testament story as nearly as possible in the actual words of
the Authorised Version.
The stories given are grouped as illustrations of
the types suitable for different stages. They are,
however, very often interchangeable; and many stories
can be told successfully to all classes. A vitally
good story is little limited in its appeal. It is,
nevertheless, a help to have certain plain results
of experience as a basis for choice; that which
is given is intended only for such a basis, not
in the least as a final list.
CERTAIN TYPES OF STORY CLASSIFIED
FOR KINDERGARTEN AND CLASS I.:
Little Rhymed Stories
(including the best of the nursery rhymes and the
more poetic fragments of Mother Goose)
Stories with Rhyme in Parts
Nature Stories
(in which the element of personification is strong)
Nonsense Tales
Wonder Tales
FOR CLASSES II. AND III.:
Nonsense Tales
Wonder Tales
Fairy and Folk Tales
Fables
Legends
Nature Stories
(especially stories of animals)
FOR CLASSES IV. AND V.:
Folk Tales
Fables
Myths and Allegories
Developed Animal Stories
Legends: Historic and Heroic
Historical Stories
Humorous Adventure Stories
"True Stories "
The wonder tales most familiar and accessible to the
teacher are probably those included in the collections of
Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. So constant is the
demand for these that the following list may be found
useful, as indicating which of the stories are more easily and
effectively adapted for telling, and commonly most successful.
It must be remembered that many of these standard tales
need such adapting as has been suggested, catting them
down, and ridding them of vulgar or sophisticated detail.
From the Brothers Grimm:
The Star Dollars
The Cat and the Mouse
The Nail
The Hare and the Hedgehog
Snow-White and Rose-Red
Mother Holle
Thumbling
Three Brothers
The Little Porridge Pot
Little Snow-White
The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids
The Sea Mouse
From Andersen:
Little Tiny
The Lark and the Daisy
The Ugly Duckling
The Seven Stories of the Snow Queen
The Flax
The Little Match Girl
The Fir-Tree
The Red Shoes
Ole Lukoie
Monday
Saturday
Sunday
The Elf of the Rose
Five Peas in a Pod
The Portuguese Duck
The Little Mermaid (much shortened)
The Nightingale (shortened)
The Girl who trod on a Loaf
The Emperor's New Clothes
Another familiar and easily attainable type of story is the
classic myth, as retold in Kupfer's Legends of Greece and
Rome.[1]
Of these, again, certain tales are more successfully adapted to
children than others. Among the best for telling are:
Arachne
Pandora
Midas
Apollo and Daphne
Apollo and Hyacinthus
Narcissus
Latona and the Rustics
Proserpine
[1] A well-nigh indispensable book for teachers is Guerber's
Myths of Greece and Rome, which contains in brief form a
complete collection of the classic myths.
CHAPTER III
ADAPTATION OF STORIES FOR TELLING
It soon becomes easy to pick out from a
collection such stories as can be well told; but
at no time is it easy to find a sufficient number
of such stories. Stories simple, direct, and
sufficiently full of incident for telling, yet having
the beautiful or valuable motive we desire for
children, do not lie hidden in every book. And
even many of the stories which are most charming
to read do not answer the double demand,
for the appeal to the eye differs in many
important respects from that to the ear. Unless one
is able to change the form of a story to suit the
needs of oral delivery, one is likely to suffer
from poverty of material. Perhaps the commonest
need of change is in the case of a story
too long to tell, yet embodying some one beautiful
incident or lesson; or one including a series
of such incidents. The story of The Nurnberg
Stove, by Ouida,[1] is a good example of the latter
kind; Ruskin's King of the Golden River will
serve as an illustration of the former.
[1] See Bimbi, by Ouida. (Chatto. 2s.)
The problem in one case is chiefly one of
elimination; in the other it is also in a large
degree one of rearrangement. In both cases I
have purposely chosen extreme instances, as
furnishing plainer illustration. The usual story
needs less adaptation than these, but the same
kind, in its own degree. Condensation and
rearrangement are the commonest forms of change
required.
Pure condensation is probably the easier for
most persons. With The Nurnberg Stove in
mind for reference, let us see what the process
includes. This story can be readily found
by anyone who is interested in the following
example of adaptation, for nearly every library
includes in its catalogue the juvenile works of
Mlle. de la Ramee (Ouida). The suggestions
given assume that the story is before my
readers.
The story as it stands is two thousand four
hundred words long, obviously too long to tell.
What can be left out? Let us see what must
be kept in.
The dramatic climax toward which we are
working is the outcome of August's strange
exploit,--his discovery by the king and the
opportunity for him to become an artist. The
joy of this climax is twofold: August may stay
with his beloved Hirschvogel, and he may learn
to make beautiful things like it. To arrive at
the twofold conclusion we must start from a
double premise,--the love of the stove and the
yearning to be an artist. It will, then, be
necessary to include in the beginning of the
story enough details of the family life to show
plainly how precious and necessary Hirschvogel
was to the children; and to state definitely
how August had learned to admire and wish to
emulate Hirschvogel's maker. We need no
detail beyond what is necessary to make this
clear.
The beginning and the end of a story decided
upon, its body becomes the bridge from one to
the other; in this case it is August's strange
journey, beginning with the catastrophe and his
grief-dazed decision to follow the stove. The
journey is long, and each stage of it is told in
full. As this is impossible in oral reproduction,
it becomes necessary to choose typical incidents,
which will give the same general effect as the
whole. The incidents which answer this purpose
are: the beginning of the journey, the
experience on the luggage train, the jolting
while being carried on men's shoulders, the final
fright and suspense before the king opens the
door.
The episode of the night in the bric-a-brac
shop introduces a wholly new and confusing
train of thought; therefore, charming as it is, it
must be omitted. And the secondary thread of
narrative interest, that of the prices for which
the stove was sold, and the retribution visited
on the cheating dealers, is also "another story,"
and must be ignored. Each of these destroys
the clear sequence and the simplicity of plot
which must be kept for telling.
We are reduced, then, for the whole, to this:
a brief preliminary statement of the place
Hirschvogel held in the household affections, and
the ambition aroused in August; the catastrophe
of the sale; August's decision; his experiences
on the train, on the shoulders of men, and just
before the discovery; his discovery, and the
denouement.
This not only reduces the story to tellable
form, but it also leaves a suggestive interest
which heightens later enjoyment of the original.
I suggest the adaptation of Kate Douglas
Wiggin, in The Story Hour, since in view of the
existence of a satisfactory adaptation it seems
unappreciative to offer a second. The one I
made for my own use some years ago is not
dissimilar to this, and I have no reason to
suppose it more desirable.
Ruskin's King of the Golden River is somewhat
difficult to adapt. Not only is it long, but its
style is mature, highly descriptive, and closely
allegorical. Yet the tale is too beautiful and
too suggestive to be lost to the story-teller.
And it is, also, so recognised a part of the
standard literary equipment of youth that
teachers need to be able to introduce children
to its charm. To make it available for telling,
we must choose the most essential events of the
series leading up to the climax, and present
these so simply as to appeal to children's ears,
and so briefly as not to tire them.
The printed story is eight thousand words in
length. The first three thousand words depict
the beauty and fertility of the Treasure Valley,
and the cruel habits of Hans and Schwartz, its
owners, and give the culminating incident which
leads to their banishment by "West Wind."
This episode,--the West Wind's appearance in
the shape of an aged traveller, his kind reception
by the younger brother, little Gluck, and the
subsequent wrath of Hans and Schwartz, with
their resulting punishment,--occupies about two
thousand words. The rest of the story deals
with the three brothers after the decree of West
Wind has turned Treasure Valley into a desert.
In the little house where they are plying their
trade of goldsmiths, the King of the Golden
River appears to Gluck and tells him the magic
secret of turning the river's waters to gold.
Hans and Schwartz in turn attempt the miracle,
and in turn incur the penalty attached to
failure. Gluck tries, and wins the treasure through
self-sacrifice. The form of the treasure is a
renewal of the fertility of Treasure Valley, and
the moral of the whole story is summed up in
Ruskin's words, "So the inheritance which was
lost by cruelty was regained by love."
It is easy to see that the dramatic part of the
story and that which most pointedly illustrates
the underlying idea, is the triple attempt to win
the treasure,--the two failures and the one
success. But this is necessarily introduced by
the episode of the King of the Golden River,
which is, also, an incident sure to appeal to a
child's imagination. And the regaining of the
inheritance is meaningless without the fact of
its previous loss, and the reason for the loss, as
a contrast with the reason for its recovery. We
need, then, the main facts recorded in the first
three thousand words. But the West Wind
episode must be avoided, not only for brevity,
but because two supernatural appearances, so
similar, yet of different personalities, would
hopelessly confuse a told story.
Our oral story is now to be made out of a
condensed statement of the character of the
Valley and of its owners, and the manner of
its loss; the intervention of the King of the
Golden River; the three attempts to turn the
river to gold, and Gluck's success. Gluck is
to be our hero, and our underlying idea is the
power of love versus cruelty. Description is to
be reduced to its lowest terms, and the language
made simple and concrete.
With this outline in mind, it may be useful
to compare the following adaptation with the
original story. The adaptation is not intended
in any sense as a substitute for the original, but
merely as that form of it which can be TOLD,
while the original remains for reading.
THE GOLDEN RIVER[1]
[1] Adapted from Ruskin's King of the Golden River.
There was once a beautiful little valley,
where the sun was warm, and the rains fell
softly; its apples were so red, its corn so
yellow, its grapes so blue, that it was called the
Treasure Valley. Not a river ran into it, but
one great river flowed down the mountains on
the other side, and because the setting sun
always tinged its high cataract with gold after
the rest of the world was dark, it was called the
Golden River. The lovely valley belonged to
three brothers. The youngest, little Gluck,
was happy-hearted and kind, but he had a hard
life with his brothers, for Hans and Schwartz
were so cruel and so mean that they were known
everywhere around as the "Black Brothers."
They were hard to their farm hands, hard to
their customers, hard to the poor, and hardest
of all to Gluck.
At last the Black Brothers became so bad
that the Spirit of the West Wind took
vengeance on them; he forbade any of the gentle
winds, south and west, to bring rain to the
valley. Then, since there were no rivers in it,
it dried up, and instead of a treasure valley it
became a desert of dry, red sand. The Black
Brothers could get nothing out of it, and they
wandered out into the world on the other side
of the mountain-peaks; and little Gluck went
with them.
Hans and Schwartz went out every day,
wasting their time in wickedness, but they
left Gluck in the house to work. And they
lived on the gold and silver they had saved
in Treasure Valley, till at last it was all gone.
The only precious thing left was Gluck's gold
mug. This the Black Brothers decided to melt
into spoons, to sell; and in spite of Gluck's
tears, they put it in the melting pot, and went
out, leaving him to watch it.
Poor little Gluck sat at the window, trying
not to cry for his dear golden mug, and as the
sun began to go down, he saw the beautiful
cataract of the Golden River turn red, and
yellow, and then pure gold.
"Oh, dear!" he said to himself, "how fine
it would be if the river were really golden!
I needn't be poor, then."
"It wouldn't be fine at all!" said a thin,
metallic little voice, in his ear.
"Mercy, what's that!" said Gluck, looking
all about. But nobody was there.
Suddenly the sharp little voice came again.
"Pour me out," it said, "I am too hot!"
It seemed to come right from the oven, and
as Gluck stood, staring in fright, it came again,
"Pour me out; I'm too hot!"
Gluck was very much frightened, but he
went and looked in the melting pot. When
he touched it, the little voice said, "Pour me
out, I say!" And Gluck took the handle and
began to pour the gold out.
First came out a tiny pair of yellow legs; then
a pair of yellow coat-tails; then a strange little
yellow body, and, last, a wee yellow face, with
long curls of gold hair. And the whole put itself
together as it fell, and stood up on the floor,--the
strangest little yellow dwarf, about a foot high!
"Dear, me!" said Gluck.
But the little yellow man said, "Gluck, do
you know who I am? I am the King of the
Golden River."
Gluck did not know what to say, so he said
nothing; and, indeed, the little man gave him
no chance. He said, "Gluck, I have been
watching you, and what I have seen of you,
I like. Listen, and I will tell you something
for your good. Whoever shall climb to the
top of the mountain from which the Golden
River falls, and shall cast into its waters three
drops of holy water, for him and him only shall
its waters turn to gold. But no one can
succeed except at the first trial, and anyone who
casts unholy water in the river will be turned
into a black stone."
And then, before Gluck could draw his breath,
the King walked straight into the hottest flame
of the fire, and vanished up the chimney!
When Gluck's brothers came home, they beat
him black and blue, because the mug was gone.
But when he told them about the King of the
Golden River they quarrelled all night, as to
which should go to get the gold. At last,
Hans, who was the stronger, got the better
of Schwartz, and started off. The priest would
not give such a bad man any holy water, so
he stole a bottleful. Then he took a basket of
bread and wine, and began to climb the mountain.
He climbed fast, and soon came to the end
of the first hill. But there he found a great
glacier, a hill of ice, which he had never seen
before. It was horrible to cross,--the ice was
slippery, great gulfs yawned before him, and
noises like groans and shrieks came from under
his feet. He lost his basket of bread and wine,
and was quite faint with fear and exhaustion
when his feet touched firm ground again.
Next he came to a hill of hot, red rock,
without a bit of grass to ease the feet, or a
particle of shade. After an hour's climb he
was so thirsty that he felt that he must drink.
He looked at the flask of water. "Three drops
are enough," he thought; "I will just cool my
lips." He was lifting the flask to his lips when
he saw something beside him in the path. It
was a small dog, and it seemed to be dying
of thirst. Its tongue was out, its legs were
lifeless, and a swarm of black ants were crawling
about its lips. It looked piteously at the
bottle which Hans held. Hans raised the bottle,
drank, kicked at the animal, and passed on.
A strange black shadow came across the
blue sky.
Another hour Hans climbed; the rocks grew
hotter and the way steeper every moment. At
last he could bear it no longer; he must drink.
The bottle was half empty, but he decided to
drink half of what was left. As he lifted it,
something moved in the path beside him. It
was a child, lying nearly dead of thirst on the
rock, its eyes closed, its lips burning, its breath
coming in gasps. Hans looked at it, drank,
and passed on.
A dark cloud came over the sun, and long
shadows crept up the mountain-side.
It grew very steep now, and the air weighed
like lead on Hans's forehead, but the Golden
River was very near. Hans stopped a moment
to breathe, then started to climb the last height.
As he clambered on, he saw an old, old man
lying in the path. His eyes were sunken, and
his face deadly pale.
"Water!" he said; "water!"
"I have none for you," said Hans; "you have
had your share of life." He strode over the old
man's body and climbed on.
A flash of blue lightning dazzled him for an
instant, and then the heavens were dark.
At last Hans stood on the brink of the cataract
of the Golden River. The sound of its roaring
filled the air. He drew the flask from his
side and hurled it into the torrent. As he did
so, an icy chill shot through him; he shrieked
and fell. And the river rose and flowed over
The Black Stone
When Hans did not come back Gluck grieved,
but Schwartz was glad. He decided to go and
get the gold for himself. He thought it might
not do to steal the holy water, as Hans had done,
so he took the money little Gluck had earned,
and bought holy water of a bad priest. Then he
took a basket of bread and wine, and started off.
He came to the great hill of ice, and was as
surprised as Hans had been, and found it as hard
to cross. Many times he slipped, and he was
much frightened at the noises, and was very glad
to get across, although he had lost his basket of
bread and wine. Then he came to the same hill
of sharp, red stone, without grass or shade, that
Hans had climbed. And like Hans he became
very thirsty. Like Hans, too, he decided to
drink a little of the water. As he raised it to
his lips, he suddenly saw the same fair child that
Hans had seen.
"Water!" said the child. "Water! I am
dying."
"I have not enough for myself," said Schwartz,
and passed on.
A low bank of black cloud rose out of the
west.
When he had climbed for another hour, the
thirst overcame him again, and again he lifted
the flask to his lips. As he did so, he saw an
old man who begged for water.
"I have not enough for myself," said Schwartz,
and passed on.
A mist, of the colour of blood, came over the
sun.
Then Schwartz climbed for another hour, and
once more he had to drink. This time, as he
lifted the flask, he thought he saw his brother
Hans before him. The figure stretched its arms
to him, and cried out for water.
"Ha, ha," laughed Schwartz, "do you suppose
I brought the water up here for you?" And he
strode over the figure. But when he had gone
a few yards farther, he looked back, and the
figure was not there.
Then he stood at the brink of the Golden
River, and its waves were black, and the roaring
of the waters filled all the air. He cast the
flask into the stream. And as he did so the
lightning glared in his eyes, the earth gave way
beneath him, and the river flowed over
The two Black Stones.
When Gluck found himself alone, he at last
decided to try his luck with the King of the
Golden River. The priest gave him some holy
water as soon as he asked for it, and with this
and a basket of bread he started off.
The hill of ice was much harder for Gluck
to climb, because he was not so strong as his
brothers. He lost his bread, fell often, and was
exhausted when he got on firm ground. He
began to climb the hill in the hottest part of
the day. When he had climbed for an hour
he was very thirsty, and lifted the bottle to
drink a little water. As he did so he saw a
feeble old man coming down the path toward
him.
"I am faint with thirst," said the old man;
"will you give me some of that water?"
Gluck saw that he was pale and tired, so he
gave him the water, saying, "Please don't drink
it all." But the old man drank a great deal, and
gave back the bottle two-thirds emptied. Then
he bade Gluck good speed, and Gluck went on
merrily.
Some grass appeared on the path, and the
grasshoppers began to sing.
At the end of another hour, Gluck felt that he
must drink again. But, as he raised the flask,
he saw a little child lying by the roadside, and
it cried out pitifully for water. After a struggle
with himself Gluck decided to bear the thirst a
little longer. He put the bottle to the child's
lips, and it drank all but a few drops. Then it
got up and ran down the hill.
All kinds of sweet flowers began to grow on
the rocks, and crimson and purple butterflies
flitted about in the air.
At the end of another hour, Gluck's thirst
was almost unbearable. He saw that there
were only five or six drops of water in the
bottle, however, and he did not dare to drink.
So he was putting the flask away again when he
saw a little dog on the rocks, gasping for breath.
He looked at it, and then at the Golden River,
and he remembered the dwarf's words, "No
one can succeed except at the first trial"; and
he tried to pass the dog. But it whined
piteously, and Gluck stopped. He could not bear
to pass it. "Confound the King and his gold,
too!" he said; and he poured the few drops of
water into the dog's mouth.
The dog sprang up; its tail disappeared, its
nose grew red, and its eyes twinkled. The next
minute the dog was gone, and the King of the
Golden River stood there. He stooped and
plucked a lily that grew beside Gluck's feet.
Three drops of dew were on its white leaves.
These the dwarf shook into the flask which Gluck
held in his hand.
"Cast these into the river," he said, "and go
down the other side of the mountains into the
Treasure Valley." Then he disappeared.
Gluck stood on the brink of the Golden River,
and cast the three drops of dew into the stream.
Where they fell, a little whirlpool opened; but
the water did not turn to gold. Indeed, the
water seemed vanishing altogether. Gluck was
disappointed not to see gold, but he obeyed the
King of the Golden River, and went down the
other side of the mountains.
When he came out into the Treasure Valley,
a river, like the Golden River, was springing
from a new cleft in the rocks above, and flowing
among the heaps of dry sand. And then fresh
grass sprang beside the river, flowers opened
along its sides, and vines began to cover the
whole valley. The Treasure Valley was becoming
a garden again.
Gluck lived in the Valley, and his grapes were
blue, and his apples were red, and his corn was
yellow; and the poor were never driven from
his door. For him, as the King had promised,
the river was really a River of Gold.
It will probably be clear to anyone who has
followed these attempts, that the first step in
adaptation is analysis, careful analysis of the
story as it stands. One asks oneself, What is
the story? Which events are necessary links in
the chain? How much of the text is pure
description?
Having this essential body of the story in
mind, one then decides which of the steps toward
the climax are needed for safe arrival there, and
keeps these. When two or more steps can be
covered in a single stride, one makes the stride.
When a necessary explanation is unduly long, or
is woven into the story in too many strands, one
disposes of it in an introductory statement, or
perhaps in a side remark. If there are two or
more threads of narrative, one chooses among
them, and holds strictly to the one chosen,
eliminating details which concern the others.
In order to hold the simplicity of plot so
attained, it is also desirable to have but few
personages in the story, and to narrate the action
from the point of view of one of them,--usually
the hero. To shift the point of view of the
action is confusing to the child's mind.
When the analysis and condensation have
been accomplished, the whole must be cast in
simple language, keeping if possible the same
kind of speech as that used in the original, but
changing difficult or technical terms to plain,
and complex images to simple and familiar ones.
All types of adaptation share in this need of
simple language,--stories which are too short,
as well as those which are too long, have this
feature in their changed form. The change in a
short story is applied oftenest where it becomes
desirable to amplify a single anecdote, or
perhaps a fable, which is told in very condensed
form. Such an instance is the following anecdote
of heroism, which in the original is quoted in
one of F. W. Robertson's lectures on Poetry.
A detachment of troops was marching along a valley,
the cliffs overhanging which were crested by the enemy. A
sergeant, with eleven men, chanced to become separated from
the rest by taking the wrong side of a ravine, which they
expected soon to terminate, but which suddenly deepened
into an impassable chasm. The officer in command signalled
to the party an order to return. They mistook the signal for
a command to charge; the brave fellows answered with a
cheer, and charged. At the summit of the steep mountain
was a triangular platform, defended by a breastwork, behind
which were seventy of the foe. On they went, charging up
one of those fearful paths, eleven against seventy. The
contest could not long be doubtful with such odds. One
after another they fell; six upon the spot, the remainder
hurled backwards; but not until they had slain nearly twice
their own number.
There is a custom, we are told, amongst the hillsmen, that
when a great chieftain of their own falls in battle, his wrist is
bound with a thread either of red or green, the red denoting
the highest rank. According to custom, they stripped the
dead, and threw their bodies over the precipice. When their
comrades came, they found their corpses stark and gashed;
but round both wrists of every British hero was twined the
red thread!
This anecdote serves its purpose of illustration
perfectly well, but considered as a separate
story it is somewhat too explanatory in diction,
and too condensed in form. Just as the long
story is analysed for reduction of given details,
so this must be analysed,--to find the details
implied. We have to read into it again all that
has been left between the lines.
Moreover, the order must be slightly changed,
if we are to end with the proper "snap," the
final sting of surprise and admiration given by
the point of the story; the point must be prepared
for. The purpose of the original is equally
well served by the explanation at the end, but
we must never forget that the place for the
climax, or effective point in a story told, is the
last thing said. That is what makes a story
"go off" well.
Imagining vividly the situation suggested, and
keeping the logical sequence of facts in mind,
shall we not find the story telling itself to boys
and girls in somewhat this form?
THE RED THREAD OF COURAGE[1]
[1] See also The Red Thread of Honour, by Sir Francis Doyle,
in Lyra Heroica,
This story which I am going to tell you is a
true one. It happened while the English troops
in India were fighting against some of the native
tribes. The natives who were making trouble
were people from the hill-country, called
Hillsmen, and they were strong enemies. The
English knew very little about them, except
their courage, but they had noticed one peculiar
custom, after certain battles,--the Hillsmen had
a way of marking the bodies of their greatest
chiefs who were killed in battle by binding a red
thread about the wrist; this was the highest
tribute they could pay a hero. The English,
however, found the common men of them quite
enough to handle, for they had proved themselves
good fighters and clever at ambushes.
One day, a small body of the English had
marched a long way into the hill country, after
the enemy, and in the afternoon they found
themselves in a part of the country strange
even to the guides. The men moved forward
very slowly and cautiously, for fear of an
ambush. The trail led into a narrow valley with
very steep, high, rocky sides, topped with woods
in which the enemy might easily hide.
Here the soldiers were ordered to advance
more quickly, though with caution, to get out
of the dangerous place.
After a little they came suddenly to a place
where the passage was divided in two by a big
three-cornered boulder which seemed to rise
from the midst of the valley. The main line
of men kept to the right; to save crowding the
path, a sergeant and eleven men took the left,
meaning to go round the rock and meet the rest
beyond it.
They had been in the path only a few minutes
when they saw that the rock was not a single
boulder at all, but an arm of the left wall of the
valley, and that they were marching into a deep
ravine with no outlet except the way they came.
Both sides were sheer rock, almost perpendicular,
with thick trees at the top; in front of
them the ground rose in a steep hill, bare of
woods. As they looked up, they saw that the
top was barricaded by the trunks of trees, and
guarded by a strong body of Hillsmen. As the
English hesitated, looking at this, a shower of
spears fell from the wood's edge, aimed by
hidden foes. The place was a death trap.
At this moment, their danger was seen by the
officer in command of the main body, and he
signalled to the sergeant to retreat.
By some terrible mischance, the signal was
misunderstood. The men took it for the signal
to charge. Without a moment's pause, straight
up the slope, they charged on the run, cheering
as they ran.
Some were killed by the spears that were
thrown from the cliffs, before they had gone
half way; some were stabbed as they reached
the crest, and hurled backward from the precipice;
two or three got to the top, and fought
hand to hand with the Hillsmen. They were
outnumbered, seven to one; but when the last
of the English soldiers lay dead, twice their
number of Hillsmen lay dead around them!
When the relief party reached the spot, later
in the day, they found the bodies of their
comrades, full of wounds, huddled over and in the
barricade, or crushed on the rocks below.
They were mutilated and battered, and bore
every sign of the terrible struggle. BUT ROUND
BOTH WRISTS OF EVERY BRITISH SOLDIER WAS BOUND
THE RED THREAD!
The Hillsmen had paid greater honour to
their heroic foes than to the bravest of their
own brave dead.
Another instance is the short poem, which,
while being perfectly simple, is rich in suggestion
of more than the young child will see for
himself. The following example shows the
working out of details in order to provide a
satisfactorily rounded story.
THE ELF AND THE DORMOUSE[1]
[1] Adapted from The Elf and the Dormouse, by Oliver
Herford, in A Treasury of Verse for Little Children.
(Harrap. 1s. net.)
Once upon a time a dormouse lived in the
wood with his mother. She had made a snug
little nest, but Sleepy-head, as she called her
little mousie, loved to roam about among the
grass and fallen leaves, and it was a hard task
to keep him at home. One day the mother went
off as usual to look for food, leaving Sleepy-
head curled up comfortably in a corner of
the nest. "He will lie there safely till I
come back," she thought. Presently, however,
Sleepy-head opened his eyes and thought he
would like to take a walk out in the fresh
air. So he crept out of the nest and through
the long grass that nodded over the hole in
the bank. He ran here and he ran there, stopping
again an again to cock his little ears for
sound of any creeping thing that might be close
at hand. His little fur coat was soft and silky
as velvet. Mother had licked it clean before
starting her day's work, you may be sure. As
Sleepy-head moved from place to place his long
tail swayed from side to side and tickled the
daisies so that they could not hold themselves
still for laughing.
Presently something very cold fell on Sleepy-
head's nose. What could it be? He put up
his little paw and dabbed at the place. Then
the same thing happened to his tail. He
whisked it quickly round to the front. Ah, it
was raining! Now Sleepy-head couldn't bear
rain, and he had got a long way from home.
What would mother say if his nice furry coat
got wet and draggled? He crept under a bush,
but soon the rain found him out. Then he ran
to a tree, but this was poor shelter. He began
to think that he was in for a soaking when
what should he spy, a little distance off, but
a fine toadstool which stood bolt upright just
like an umbrella. The next moment Sleepy-
head was crawling underneath the friendly
shelter. He fixed himself up as snugly as he
could, with his little nose upon his paws and his
little tail curled round all, and before you could
count six, eight, ten, twenty, he was fast asleep.
Now it happened that Sleepy-head was not
the only creature that was caught by the rain
that morning in the wood. A little elf had
been flitting about in search of fun or mischief,
and he, too, had got far from home when the
raindrops began to come pattering through the
leafy roof of the beautiful wood. It would never
do to get his pretty wings wet, for he hated to
walk--it was such slow work and, besides, he
might meet some big wretched animal that could
run faster than himself. However, he was
beginning to think that there was no help for it,
when, on a sudden, there before him was the
toadstool, with Sleepy-head snug and dry underneath!
There was room for another little fellow,
thought the elf, and ere long he had safely
bestowed himself under the other half of the
toadstool, which was just like an umbrella.
Sleepy-head slept on, warm and comfortable
in his furry coat, and the elf began to feel
annoyed with him for being so happy. He
was always a great mischief, and he could not
bear to sit still for long at a time. Presently
he laughed a queer little laugh. He had got
an idea! Putting his two small arms round
the stem of the toadstool he tugged and he
pulled until, of a sudden, snap! He had broken
the stem, and a moment later was soaring in air
safely sheltered under the toadstool, which he
held upright by its stem as he flew.
Sleepy-head had been dreaming, oh, so cosy
a dream! It seemed to him that he had
discovered a storehouse filled with golden grain
and soft juicy nuts with little bunches of sweet-
smelling hay, where tired mousies might sleep
dull hours away. He thought that he was
settled in the sweetest bunch of all, with
nothing in the world to disturb his nap, when
gradually he became aware that something had
happened. He shook himself in his sleep and
settled down again, but the dream had altered.
He opened his eyes. Rain was falling, pit-a-pat,
and he was without cover on a wet patch of
grass. What could be the matter? Sleepy-
head was now wide awake. Said he,
"DEAR ME, WHERE IS MY TOADSTOOL?"
From these four instances we may, perhaps,
deduce certain general principles of adaptation
which have at least proved valuable to those
using them.
These are suggestions which the practised
story-teller will find trite. But to others they
may prove a fair foundation on which to build
a personal method to be developed by experience.
I have given them a tabular arrangement below.
The preliminary step in all cases is
Analysis of the Story.
The aim, then, is
to REDUCE a long story or to AMPLIFY a short one.
For the first, the need is
ELIMINATION of secondary threads of narrative,
extra personages,
description,
irrelevant events.
For the second, the great need is of
Realising Imagination.
For both, it is desirable to keep
Close Logical Sequence,
Single Point of View,
Simple Language,
The Point at the End
CHAPTER IV
HOW TO TELL THE STORY
Selection, and, if necessary, adaptation--these
are the preliminaries to the act of telling. That,
after all, is the real test of one's power. That
is the real joy, when achieved; the real bugbear,
when dreaded. And that is the subject of this
chapter, "How to tell a story."
How to tell a story: it is a short question
which demands a long answer. The right
beginning of the answer depends on a right
conception of the thing the question is about; and
that naturally reverts to an earlier discussion of
the real nature of a story. In that discussion it
was stated that a story is a work of art,--a message,
as all works of art are.
To tell a story, then, is to pass on the message,
to share the work of art. The message may be
merely one of humour,--of nonsense, even;
works of art range all the way from the "Victory"
to a "Dresden Shepherdess," from an
"Assumption" to a "Broken Pitcher," and
farther. Each has its own place. But whatever
its quality, the story-teller is the passer-on, the
interpreter, the transmitter. He comes bringing
a gift. Always he gives; always he bears a
message.
This granted, the first demand of the story-
teller is not far to seek. No one can repeat a
message he has not heard, or interpret what he
does not understand. You cannot give, unless
you first possess. The first demand of the story-
teller is that he possess. He must FEEL the
story. Whatever the particular quality and
appeal of the work of art, from the lightest to
the grandest emotion or thought, he must have
responded to it, grasped it, felt it intimately,
before he can give it out again. Listen, humbly,
for the message.
I realise that this has an incongruous sound,
when applied to such stories as that of the little
pig at the stile or of the greedy cat who ate up
man and beast. But, believe me, it does
apply even to those. For the transmittable
thing in a story is the identifying essence, the
characterising savour, the peculiar quality and
point of view of the humour, pathos, or interest.
Every tale which claims a place in good fiction
has this identifying savour and quality, each
different from every other. The laugh which
echoes one of Seumas McManus's rigmaroles is
not the chuckle which follows one of Joel
Chandler Harris's anecdotes; the gentle sadness
of an Andersen allegory is not the heart
searching tragedy of a tale from the Greek; nor
is any one story of an author just like any other
of the same making. Each has its personal
likeness, its facial expression, as it were.
And the mind must be sensitised to these
differences. No one can tell stories well who
has not a keen and just feeling of such emotional
values.
A positive and a negative injunction depend on
this premise,--the positive, cultivate your feeling,
striving toward increasingly just appreciation;
the negative, never tell a story you do not feel.
Fortunately, the number and range of stories
one can appreciate grow with cultivation; but
it is the part of wisdom not to step outside the
range at any stage of its growth.
I feel the more inclined to emphasise this
caution because I once had a rather embarrassing
and pointed proof of its desirability,--which I
relate for the enlightening of the reader.
There is a certain nonsense tale which a
friend used to tell with such effect that her
hearers became helpless with laughter, but which
for some reason never seemed funny to me. I
could not laugh at it. But my friend constantly
urged me to use it, quoting her own success.
At last, with much curiosity and some trepidation,
I included it in a programme before people
with whom I was so closely in sympathy that
no chill was likely to emanate from their side.
I told the story as well as I knew how, putting
into it more genuine effort than most stories
can claim. The audience smiled politely,
laughed gently once or twice, relapsed into the
mildest of amusement. The most one could
say was that the story was not a hopeless failure,
I tried it again, after study, and yet again; but
the audiences were all alike. And in my heart
I should have been startled if they had behaved
otherwise, for all the time I was telling it I was
conscious in my soul that it was a stupid story!
At last I owned my defeat to myself, and put
the thing out of mind.
Some time afterward, I happened to take out
the notes of the story, and idly looked them
over; and suddenly, I do not know how, I got
the point of view! The salt of the humour was
all at once on my lips; I felt the tickle of the
pure folly of it; it WAS funny.
The next afternoon I told the story to a
hundred or so children and as many mothers,--
and the battle was won. Chuckles punctuated
my periods; helpless laughter ran like an under-
current below my narrative; it was a struggle
for me to keep sober, myself. The nonsense
tale had found its own atmosphere.
Now of course I had known all along that
the humour of the story emanated from its very
exaggeration, its absurdly illogical smoothness.
But I had not FELT it. I did not really "see the
joke." And that was why I could not tell the
story. I undoubtedly impressed my own sense
of its fatuity on every audience to which I gave
it. The case is very clear.
Equally clear have been some happy instances
where I have found audiences responding to a
story I myself greatly liked, but which common
appreciation usually ignored. This is an
experience even more persuasive than the other,
certainly more to be desired.
Every story-teller has lines of limitation;
certain types of story will always remain his or
her best effort. There is no reason why any
type of story should be told really ill, and of
course the number of kinds one tells well
increases with the growth of the appreciative
capacity. But none the less, it is wise to
recognise the limits at each stage, and not try to
tell any story to which the honest inner
consciousness says, "I do not like you."
Let us then set down as a prerequisite for
good story-telling, A GENUINE APPRECIATION OF THE
STORY.
Now, we may suppose this genuine appreciation
to be your portion. You have chosen a
story, have felt its charm, and identified the
quality of its appeal.
You are now to tell it in such wise that your
hearers will get the same kind of impression
you yourself received from it. How?
I believe the inner secret of success is the
measure of force with which the teller wills the
conveyance of his impression to the hearer.
Anyone who has watched, or has himself
been, the teller of a story which held an audience,
knows that there is something approaching
hypnotic suggestion in the close connection of
effort and effect, and in the elimination of self-
consciousness from speaker and listeners alike.
I would not for a moment lend the atmosphere
of charlatanry, or of the ultra-psychic, to the
wholesome and vivid art of story-telling. But
I would, if possible, help the teacher to realise
how largely success in that art is a subjective
and psychological matter, dependent on her
control of her own mood and her sense of direct,
intimate communion with the minds attending
her. The "feel" of an audience,--that
indescribable sense of the composite human soul
waiting on the initiative of your own, the
emotional currents interplaying along a medium
so delicate that it takes the baffling torture of
an obstruction to reveal its existence,--cannot
be taught. But it can and does develop with
use. And a realisation of the immense latent
power of strong desire and resolution vitalises
and disembarrasses the beginner.
That is, undoubtedly, rather an intangible
beginning; it sets the root of the matter somewhat
in the realm of "spirits and influences."
There are, however, outward and visible means
of arriving at results. Every art has its
technique. The art of story-telling, intensely
personal and subjective as it is, yet comes under
the law sufficiently not to be a matter of sheer
"knack." It has its technique. The following
suggestions are an attempt to state what seem
the foundation principles of that technique.
The general statements are deduced from many
consecutive experiences; partly, too, they are
the results of introspective analysis, confirmed
by observation. They do not make up an
exclusive body of rules, wholly adequate to
produce good work, of themselves; they do
include, so far as my observation and experience
allow, the fundamental requisites of good work,
--being the qualities uniformly present in
successful work of many story-tellers.
First of all, most fundamental of all, is a rule
without which any other would be but folly:
KNOW YOUR STORY.
One would think so obvious a preliminary
might be taken for granted. But alas, even
slight acquaintance with the average story-teller
proves the dire necessity of the admonition.
The halting tongue, the slip in name or incident,
the turning back to forge an omitted link in the
chain, the repetition, the general weakness of
statement consequent on imperfect grasp: these
are common features of the stories one hears
told. And they are features which will deface
the best story ever told.
One must know the story absolutely; it
must have been so assimilated that it partakes
of the nature of personal experience; its essence
must be so clearly in mind that the teller does
not have to think of it at all in the act of telling,
but rather lets it flow from his lips with the
unconscious freedom of a vivid reminiscence.
Such knowledge does not mean memorising.
Memorising utterly destroys the freedom of
reminiscence, takes away the spontaneity, and
substitutes a mastery of form for a mastery of
essence. It means, rather, a perfect grasp of
the gist of the story, with sufficient familiarity
with its form to determine the manner of its
telling. The easiest way to obtain this mastery
is, I think, to analyse the story into its simplest
elements of plot. Strip it bare of style, description,
interpolation, and find out simply WHAT
HAPPENED. Personally, I find that I get first
an especially vivid conception of the climax;
this then has to be rounded out by a clear
perception of the successive steps which lead
up to the climax. One has, so, the framework
of the story. The next process is the filling in.
There must be many ways of going about
this filling in. Doubtless many of my readers,
in the days when it was their pet ambition
to make a good recitation in school, evolved
personally effective ways of doing it; for it is,
after all, the same thing as preparing a bit of
history or a recitation in literature. But for
the consideration of those who find it hard to
gain mastery of fact without mastery of its
stated form, I give my own way. I have always
used the childlike plan of talking it out. Sometimes
inaudibly, sometimes in loud and penetrating
tones which arouse the sympathetic curiosity
of my family, I tell it over and over, to an
imaginary hearer. That hearer is as present
to me, always has been, as Stevenson's "friend
of the children" who takes the part of the
enemy in their solitary games of war. His
criticism (though he is a most composite double-
sexed creature who should not have a designating
personal pronoun) is all-revealing. For
talking it out instantly brings to light the
weak spots in one's recollection. "What was
it the little crocodile said?" "Just how did
the little pig get into his house?" "What
was that link in the chain of circumstances
which brought the wily fox to confusion?"
The slightest cloud of uncertainty becomes
obvious in a moment. And as obvious becomes
one's paucity of expression, one's week-kneed
imagination, one's imperfect assimilation of
the spirit of the story. It is not a flattering
process.
But when these faults have been corrected
by several attempts, the method gives a
confidence, a sense of sureness, which makes the
real telling to a real audience ready and
spontaneously smooth. Scarcely an epithet or a
sentence comes out as it was in the preliminary
telling; but epithets and sentences in sufficiency
do come; the beauty of this method is that it
brings freedom instead of bondage.
A valuable exception to the rule against
memorising must be noted here. Especially
beautiful and indicative phrases of the original
should be retained, and even whole passages,
where they are identified with the beauty of
the tale. And in stories like The Three
Bears or Red Riding Hood the exact phraseology
of the conversation as given in familiar
versions should be preserved; it is in a way
sacred, a classic, and not to be altered. But
beyond this the language should be the teller's
own, and probably never twice the same. Sureness,
ease, freedom, and the effect of personal
reminiscence come only from complete mastery.
I repeat, with emphasis: Know your story.
The next suggestion is a purely practical one
concerning the preparation of physical conditions.
See that the children are seated in close and
direct range of your eye; the familiar half-circle
is the best arrangement for small groups of
children, but the teacher should be at a point
OPPOSITE the centre of the arc, NOT in its centre:
it is important also not to have the ends too far
at the side, and to have no child directly behind
another, or in such a position that he has not
an easy view of the teacher's full face. Little
children have to be physically close in order to
be mentally close. It is, of course, desirable
to obtain a hushed quiet before beginning; but
it is not so important as to preserve your own
mood of holiday, and theirs. If the fates and
the atmosphere of the day are against you, it
is wiser to trust to the drawing power of the
tale itself, and abate the irritation of didactic
methods. And never break into that magic
tale, once begun, with an admonition to Ethel
or Tommy to stop squirming, or a rebuke to
"that little girl over there who is not listening."
Make her listen! It is probably your fault if
she is not. If you are telling a good story, and
telling it well, she can't help listening,--unless
she is an abnormal child; and if she is abnormal
you ought not to spoil the mood of the others
to attend to her.
I say "never" interrupt your story; perhaps
it is only fair to amend that, after the fashion of
dear little Marjorie Fleming, and say "never--if
you can help it." For, of course, there are exceptional
occasions, and exceptional children; some
latitude must be left for the decisions of good
common sense acting on the issue of the moment.
The children ready, your own mood must be
ready. It is desirable that the spirit of the
story should be imposed upon the room from the
beginning, and this result hangs on the clearness
and intensity of the teller's initiatory mood. An
act of memory and of will is the requisite. The
story-teller must call up--it comes with the
swiftness of thought--the essential emotion of
the story as he felt it first. A single volition
puts him in touch with the characters and the
movement of the tale. This is scarcely more
than a brief and condensed reminiscence; it is
the stepping back into a mood once experienced.
Let us say, for example, that the story to be
told is the immortal fable of The Ugly Duckling.
Before you open your lips the whole
pathetic series of the little swan's mishaps should
flash across your mind,--not accurately and in
detail, but blended to a composite of undeserved
ignominy, of baffled innocent wonderment, and
of delicious underlying satire on average views.
With this is mingled the feeling of Andersen's
delicate whimsicality of style. The dear little
Ugly Duckling waddles, bodily, into your consciousness,
and you pity his sorrows and anticipate
his triumph, before you begin.
This preliminary recognition of mood is what
brings the delicious quizzical twitch to the mouth
of a good raconteur who begins an anecdote the
hearers know will be side-splitting. It is what
makes grandmother sigh gently and look far over
your heads, when her soft voice commences the
story of "the little girl who lived long, long
ago." It is a natural and instinctive thing with
the born story-teller; a necessary thing for anyone
who will become a story-teller.
From the very start, the mood of the tale
should be definite and authoritative, beginning
with the mood of the teller and emanating therefrom
in proportion as the physique of the teller
is a responsive medium.
Now we are off. Knowing your story, having
your hearers well arranged, and being as
thoroughly as you are able in the right mood,
you begin to tell it. Tell it, then, simply,
directly, dramatically, with zest.
SIMPLY applies both to manner and matter.
As to manner, I mean without affectation,
without any form of pretence, in short, without
posing. It is a pity to "talk down" to the
children, to assume a honeyed voice, to think
of the edifying or educational value of the work
one is doing. Naturalness, being oneself, is the
desideratum. I wonder why we so often use a
preposterous voice,--a super-sweetened whine,
in talking to children? Is it that the effort to
realise an ideal of gentleness and affectionateness
overreaches itself in this form of the grotesque?
Some good intention must be the root of it
But the thing is none the less pernicious. A
"cant" voice is as abominable as a cant phraseology.
Both are of the very substance of evil.
"But it is easier to SAY, `Be natural' than to
BE it," said one teacher to me desperately.
Beyond dispute. To those of us who are
cursed with an over-abundant measure of self-
consciousness, nothing is harder than simple
naturalness. The remedy is to lose oneself in
one's art. Think of the story so absorbingly
and vividly that you have no room to think of
yourself. Live it. Sink yourself in that mood
you have summoned up, and let it carry you.
If you do this, simplicity of matter will come
easily. Your choice of words and images will
naturally become simple.
It is, I think, a familiar precept to educators,
that children should not have their literature
too much simplified for them. We are told that
they like something beyond them, and that it
is good for them to have a sense of mystery and
power beyond the sense they grasp. That may
be true; but if so it does not apply to story-
telling as it does to reading. We have
constantly to remember that the movement of a
story told is very swift. A concept not grasped
in passing is irrevocably lost; there is no
possibility of turning back, or lingering over the
page. Also, since the art of story-telling is
primarily an art of entertainment, its very object
is sacrificed if the ideas and images do not slip
into the child's consciousness smoothly enough
to avoid the sense of strain. For this reason
short, familiar, vivid words are best.
Simplicity of manner and of matter are both
essential to the right appeal to children.
DIRECTNESS in telling is a most important
quality. The story, listened to, is like the
drama, beheld. Its movement must be unimpeded,
increasingly swift, winding up "with a
snap." Long-windedness, or talking round the
story, utterly destroys this movement. The
incidents should be told, one after another,
without explanation or description beyond what
is absolutely necessary; and THEY SHOULD BE TOLD
IN LOGICAL SEQUENCE. Nothing is more distressing
than the cart-before-the-horse method,--nothing
more quickly destroys interest than the failure
to get a clue in the right place.
Sometimes, to be sure, a side remark adds
piquancy and a personal savour. But the
general rule is, great discretion in this respect.
Every epithet or adjective beyond what is
needed to give the image, is a five-barred gate
in the path of the eager mind travelling to a
climax.
Explanations and moralising are usually sheer
clatter. Some few stories necessarily include
a little explanation, and stories of the fable
order may quaintly end with an obvious moral.
But here again, the rule is--great discretion.
It is well to remember that you have one
great advantage over the writer of stories. The
writer must present a clear image and make a
vivid impression,--all with words. The teller
has face, and voice, and body to do it with.
The teller needs, consequently, but one swiftly
incisive verb to the writer's two; but one
expressive adjective to his three. Often, indeed,
a pause and an expressive gesture do the whole
thing.
It may be said here that it is a good trick of
description to repeat an epithet or phrase once
used, when referring again to the same thing.
The recurrent adjectives of Homer were the
device of one who entertained a childlike
audience. His trick is unconscious and
instinctive with people who have a natural gift
for children's stories. Of course this matter
also demands common sense in the degree of its
use; in moderation it is a most successful device.
Brevity, close logical sequence, exclusion of
foreign matter, unhesitant speech,--to use these
is to tell a story directly.
After simplicity and directness, comes that
quality which to advise, is to become a rock of
offence to many. It is the suggestion, "Tell
the story DRAMATICALLY." Yet when we quite
understand each other as to the meaning of
"dramatically," I think you will agree with me
that a good story-teller includes this in his
qualities of manner. It means, not in the
manner of the elocutionist, not excitably, not
any of the things which are incompatible with
simplicity and sincerity; but with a whole-
hearted throwing of oneself into the game,
which identifies one in a manner with the
character or situation of the moment. It means
responsively, vividly, without interposing a blank
wall of solid self between the drama of the tale
and the mind's eye of the audience.
It is such fun, pure and simple, so to throw
oneself into it, and to see the answering
expressions mimic one's own, that it seems
superfluous to urge it. Yet many persons do
find it difficult. The instant, slight but
suggestive change of voice, the use of onomatopoetic
words, the response of eyes and hands,
which are all immediate and spontaneous with
some temperaments, are to others a matter of
shamefacedness and labour. To those, to all
who are not by nature bodily expressive, I
would reiterate the injunction already given,
not to pretend. Do nothing you cannot do
naturally and happily. But lay your stress on
the inner and spiritual effort to appreciate, to
feel, to imagine out the tale; and let the
expressiveness of your body grow gradually with
the increasing freedom from crippling self-
consciousness. The physique will become more
mobile as the emotion does.
The expression must, however, always REMAIN
SUGGESTIVE RATHER THAN ILLUSTRATIVE. This
is the side of the case which those who are
over-dramatic must not forget. The story-
teller is not playing the parts of his stories;
he is merely arousing the imagination of his
hearers to picture the scenes for themselves.
One element of the dual consciousness of the
tale-teller remains always the observer, the
reporter, the quiet outsider.
I like to think of the story-teller as a good
fellow standing at a great window overlooking
a busy street or a picturesque square, and
reporting with gusto to the comrade in the rear
of the room what of mirth or sadness he sees;
he hints at the policeman's strut, the organ-
grinder's shrug, the schoolgirl's gaiety, with a
gesture or two which is born of an irresistible
impulse to imitate; but he never leaves his
fascinating post to carry the imitation further
than a hint.
The verity of this figure lies in the fact that
the dramatic quality of story-telling depends
closely upon the CLEARNESS AND POWER WITH WHICH
THE STORY-TELLER VISUALISES THE EVENTS AND CHARACTERS
HE DESCRIBES. You must hold the image before
the mind's eye, using your imagination to
embody to yourself every act, incident and
appearance. You must, indeed, stand at the window
of your consciousness and watch what happens.
This is a point so vital that I am tempted
to put it in ornate type. You must SEE what
you SAY!
It is not too much, even, to say, "You must
see more than you say." True vividness is lent
by a background of picture realised by the
listener beyond what you tell him. Children
see, as a rule, no image you do not see; they
see most clearly what you see most largely.
Draw, then, from a full well, not from a supply
so low that the pumps wheeze at every pull.
Dramatic power of the reasonably quiet and
suggestive type demanded for telling a story
will come pretty surely in the train of effort
along these lines; it follows the clear concept
and sincerity in imparting it, and is a natural
consequence of the visualising imagination.
It is inextricably bound up, also, with the
causes and results of the quality which finds
place in my final injunction, to tell your story
WITH ZEST. It might almost be assumed that
the final suggestion renders the preceding one
superfluous, so direct is the effect of a lively
interest on the dramatic quality of a narration;
but it would not of itself be adequate; the
necessity of visualising imagination is paramount.
Zest is, however, a close second to
this clearness of mental vision. It is entirely
necessary to be interested in your own story,
to enjoy it as you tell it. If you are bored and
tired, the children will soon be bored and tired,
too. If you are not interested your manner
cannot get that vitalised spontaneity which
makes dramatic power possible. Nothing else
will give that relish on the lips, that gusto,
which communicates its joy to the audience
and makes it receptive to every impression.
I used to say to teachers, "Tell your story
with all your might," but I found that this
by a natural misconception was often interpreted
to mean "laboriously." And of course
nothing is more injurious to the enjoyment of
an audience than obvious effort on the part
of the entertainer. True zest can be--often
is--extremely quiet, but it gives a savour
nothing else can impart.
"But how, at the end of a hard morning's
work, can I be interested in a story I have told
twenty times before?" asks the kindergarten or
primary teacher, not without reason.
There are two things to be said. The first is
a reminder of the wisdom of choosing stories in
which you originally have interest; and of having
a store large enough to permit variety. The
second applies to those inevitable times of weariness
which attack the most interested and well-
stocked story-teller. You are, perhaps, tired
out physically. You have told a certain story
till it seems as if a repetition of it must produce
bodily effects dire to contemplate, yet that
happens to be the very story you must tell.
What can you do? I answer, "Make believe."
The device seems incongruous with the repeated
warnings against pretence; but it is necessary,
and it is wise. Pretend as hard as ever you can
to be interested. And the result will be--before
you know it--that you will BE interested. That
is the chief cause of the recommendation; it
brings about the result it simulates. Make
believe, as well as you know how, and the
probability is that you will not even know when the
transition from pretended to real interest comes.
And fortunately, the children never know the
difference. They have not that psychological
infallibility which is often attributed to them.
They might, indeed, detect a pretence which
continued through a whole tale; but that is so
seldom necessary that it needs little consideration.
So then: enjoy your story; be interested in
it,--if you possibly can; and if you cannot,
pretend to be, till the very pretence brings
about the virtue you have assumed.
There is much else which might be said and
urged regarding the method of story-telling, even
without encroaching on the domain of personal
variations. A whole chapter might, for example,
be devoted to voice and enunciation, and then
leave the subject fertile. But voice and enunciation
are after all merely single manifestations of
degree and quality of culture, of taste, and of
natural gift. No set rules can bring charm of
voice and speech to a person whose feeling and
habitual point of view are fundamentally wrong;
the person whose habitual feeling and mental
attitude are fundamentally right needs few or no
rules. As the whole matter of story-telling is
in the first instance an expression of the complex
personal product, so will this feature of it
vary in perfection according to the beauty and
culture of the human mechanism manifesting it.
A few generally applicable suggestions may,
however, be useful,--always assuming the story-
teller to have the fundamental qualifications of
fine and wholesome habit. These are not rules
for the art of speaking; they are merely some
practical considerations regarding speaking to
an audience.
First, I would reiterate my earlier advice, be
simple. Affectation is the worst enemy of voice
and enunciation alike. Slovenly enunciation is
certainly very dreadful, but the unregenerate
may be pardoned if they prefer it to the
affected mouthing which some over-nice people
without due sense of values expend on every
syllable which is so unlucky as to fall between
their teeth.
Next I would urge avoidance of a fault very
common with those who speak much in large
rooms,--the mistaken effort at loudness. This
results in tightening and straining the throat,
finally producing nasal head-tones or a voice
of metallic harshness. And it is entirely
unnecessary. There is no need to speak loudly.
The ordinary schoolroom needs no vocal effort.
A hall seating three or four hundred persons
demands no effort whatever beyond a certain
clearness and definiteness of speech. A hall
seating from five to eight hundred needs more
skill in aiming the voice, but still demands no
shouting.
It is indeed largely the psychological quality
of a tone that makes it reach in through the ear
to the comprehension. The quiet, clear, restful,
persuasive tone of a speaker who knows his
power goes straight home; but loud speech
confuses. Never speak loudly. In a small room,
speak as gently and easily as in conversation;
in a large room, think of the people farthest
away, and speak clearly, with a slight separation
between words, and with definite phrasing,--
aiming your MIND toward the distant listeners.
If one is conscious of nasality or throatiness
of voice, it certainly pays to study the subject
seriously with an intelligent teacher. But a
good, natural speaking-voice, free from extraordinary
vices, will fill all the requirements of
story-telling to small audiences, without other
attention than comes indirectly from following
the general principles of the art.
To sum it all up, then, let us say of the method
likely to bring success in telling stories, that it
includes sympathy, grasp, spontaneity: one
must appreciate the story, and know it; and
then, using the realising imagination as a
constant vivifying force, and dominated by the
mood of the story, one must tell it with all one's
might,--simply, vitally, joyously.
CHAPTER V
SOME SPECIFIC SCHOOLROOM USES OF STORY-TELLING
In Chapter II., I have tried to give my conception
of the general aim of story-telling in school.
From that conception, it is not difficult to deduce
certain specific uses. The one most plainly
intimated is that of a brief recreation period, a
feature which has proved valuable in many
classes. Less definitely implied, but not to be
ignored, was the use of the story during, or
accessory to, the lesson in science or history.
But more distinctive and valuable than these,
I think, is a specific use which I have recently
had the pleasure of seeing exemplified in great
completeness in the schools of Providence,
Rhode Island.
Some four years ago, the assistant superintendent
of schools of that city, Miss Ella L.
Sweeney, introduced a rather unusual and
extended application of the story in her primary
classes. While the experiment was in its early
stages, it was my good fortune to be allowed to
make suggestions for its development, and as
the devices in question were those I had been
accustomed to use as a pastime for children, I
was able to take some slight hand in the formative
work of its adoption as an educational
method. Carried out most ably by the teachers
to whom it was entrusted, the plan has evolved
into a more inclusive and systematic one than
was at first hoped for; it is one from which I
have been grateful to learn.
Tersely stated, the object of the general plan
is the freeing and developing of the power of
expression in the pupils.
I think there can be no need of dwelling on
the desirability of this result. The apathy and
"woodenness" of children under average modes
of pedagogy is apparent to anyone who is
interested enough to observe. In elementary
work, the most noticeable lack of natural
expression is probably in the reading classes; the
same drawback appears at a later stage in
English composition. But all along the line
every thoughtful teacher knows how difficult it
is to obtain spontaneous, creative reaction on
material given.
Story-telling has a real mission to perform in
setting free the natural creative expression of
children, and in vitalising the general atmosphere
of the school. The method in use for
this purpose in Providence (and probably elsewhere,
as ideas usually germinate in more than
one place at once) is a threefold GIVING BACK of
the story by the children. Two of the forms of
reproduction are familiar to many teachers; the
first is the obvious one of telling the story back
again.
It is such fun to listen to a good story that
children remember it without effort, and later,
when asked if they can tell the story of The
Red-Headed Woodpecker or The little Red Hen,
they are as eager to try it as if it were a personal
experience which they were burning to
impart.
Each pupil, in the Providence classes, is given
a chance to try each story, at some time. Then
that one which each has told especially well is
allotted to him for his own particular story, on
which he has an especial claim thereafter.
It is surprising to note how comparatively
individual and distinctive the expression of
voice and manner becomes, after a short time.
The child instinctively emphasises the points
which appeal to him, and the element of fun in
it all helps to bring forgetfulness of self. The
main inflections and the general tenor of the
language, however, remain imitative, as is
natural with children. But this is a gain rather
than otherwise, for it is useful in forming good
habit. In no other part of her work, probably,
has a teacher so good a chance to foster in her
pupils pleasant habits of enunciation and voice.
And this is especially worth while ill the big
city schools, where so many children come from
homes where the English of the tenement is
spoken.
I have since wished that every city primary
teacher could have visited with me the first-
grade room in Providence where the pupils were
German, Russian, or Polish Jews, and where
some of them had heard no English previous
to that year,--it being then May. The joy that
shone on their faces was nothing less than
radiance when the low-voiced teacher said,
"Would you like to tell these ladies some of
your stories?"
They told us their stories, and there was
truly not one told poorly or inexpressively; all
the children had learned something of the joy
of creative effort. But one little fellow stands
out in my memory beyond all the rest, yet as
a type of all the rest.
Rudolph was very small, and square, and
merry of eye; life was one eagerness and
expectancy to him. He knew no English beyond
that of one school year. But he stood
staunchly in his place and told me the story
of the Little Half Chick with an abandon and
bodily emphasis which left no doubt of his
sympathetic understanding of every word. The
depth of moral reproach in his tone was quite
beyond description when he said, "Little Half
Chick, little Half Chick, when I was in trubbul
you wouldn't help me!" He heartily relished
that repetition, and became more dramatic each
time.
Through it all, in the tones of the tender little
voice, the sidewise pose of the neat dark head,
and the occasional use of a chubby pointing
finger, one could trace a vague reflection of
the teacher's manner. It was not strong
enough to dominate at all over the child's
personality, but it was strong enough to suggest
possibilities.
In different rooms, I was told The Half Chick,
The Little Red Hen, The Three Bears, The Red-
Headed Woodpecker, The Fox and the Grapes,
and many other simple stories, and in every
instance there was a noticeable degree of
spontaneity and command of expression.
When the reading classes were held, the
influence of this work was very visible. It had
crept into the teachers' method, as well as the
children's attitude. The story interest was still
paramount. In the discussion, in the teachers'
remarks, and in the actual reading, there was
a joyousness and an interest in the subject-
matter which totally precluded that preoccupation
with sounds and syllables so deadly to any
real progress in reading. There was less of the
mechanical in the reading than in any I had
heard in my visits to schools; but it was
exceptionally accurate.
The second form of giving back which has
proved a keen pleasure and a stimulus to growth
is a kind of "seat-work." The children are
allowed to make original illustrations of the
stories by cutting silhouette pictures.
It will be readily seen that no child can do
this without visualising each image very
perfectly. In the simplest and most unconscious
way possible, the small artists are developing
the power of conceiving and holding the concrete
image of an idea given, the power which
is at the bottom of all arts of expression.
Through the kindness of Miss Sweeney, I
am able to insert several of these illustrations.
They are entirely original, and were made without
any thought of such a use as this.
The pictures and the retelling are both
popular with children, but neither is as dear
to them as the third form of reproduction of
which I wish to speak. This third kind is
taken entirely on the ground of play, and no
visibly didactic element enters into it. It
consists simply of PLAYING THE STORY.
When a good story with a simple sequence
has been told, and while the children are still
athrill with the delight of it, they are told they
may play it.
"Who would like to be Red Riding Hood?"
says the teacher; up go the little girls' hands,
and Mary or Hannah or Gertrude is chosen.
"Who will be the wolf?" Johnny or Marcus
becomes the wolf. The kind woodchopper and
the mother are also happily distributed, for in
these little dramatic companies it is an all-star
cast, and no one realises any indignity in a
subordinate role.
"Now, where shall we have little Red Riding
Hood's house? `Over in that corner,' Katie?
Very well, Riding Hood shall live over there.
And where shall the grandmother's cottage be?"
The children decide that it must be a long
distance through the wood,--half-way round
the schoolroom, in fact. The wolf selects the
spot where he will meet Red Riding Hood, and
the woodchopper chooses a position from which
he can rush in at the critical moment, to save
Red Riding Hood's life.
Then, with gusto good to see, they play the
game. The teacher makes no suggestions;
each actor creates his part. Some children
prove extremely expressive and facile, while
others are limited by nature. But each is left
to his spontaneous action.
In the course of several days several sets of
children have been allowed to try; then if any
of them are notably good in the several roles,
they are given an especial privilege in that
story, as was done with the retelling. When
a child expresses a part badly, the teacher
sometimes asks if anyone thinks of another
way to do it; from different examples offered,
the children then choose the one they prefer;
this is adopted. At no point is the teacher
apparently teaching. She lets the audience
teach itself and its actors.
The children played a good many stories
for me during my visit in Providence. Of
them all, Red Riding Hood, The Fox and the
Grapes, and The Lion and the Mouse were most
vividly done.
It will be long before the chief of the Little
Red Riding Hoods fades from my memory.
She had a dark, foreign little face, with a
good deal of darker hair tied back from it,
and brown, expressive hands. Her eyes were
so full of dancing lights that when they met
mine unexpectedly it was as if a chance
reflection had dazzled me. When she was told
that she might play, she came up for her riding
hood like an embodied delight, almost dancing
as she moved. (Her teacher used a few simple
elements of stage-setting for her stories, such
as bowls for the Bears, a cape for Riding
Hood, and so on.)
The game began at once. Riding Hood
started from the rear corner of the room,
basket on arm; her mother gave her strict
injunctions as to lingering on the way, and she
returned a respectful "Yes, mother." Then
she trotted round the aisle, greeting the wood-
chopper on the way, to the deep wood which
lay close by the teacher's desk. There master
wolf was waiting, and there the two held
converse,--master wolf very crafty indeed, Red
Riding Hood extremely polite. The wolf then
darted on ahead and crouched down in the
corner which represented grandmother's bed.
Riding Hood tripped sedately to the imaginary
door, and knocked. The familiar dialogue
followed, and with the words "the better to eat
you with, my dear!" the wolf clutched Red
Riding Hood, to eat her up. But we were
not forced to undergo the threatened scene of
horrid carnage, as the woodchopper opportunely
arrived, and stated calmly, "I will not
let you kill Little Red Riding Hood."
All was now happily culminated, and with
the chopper's grave injunction as to future
conduct in her ears, the rescued heroine tip-
toed out of the woods, to her seat.
I wanted to applaud, but I realised in the
nick of time that we were all playing, and
held my peace.
The Fox and the Grapes was more dramatically
done, but was given by a single child.
He was the chosen "fox" of another primary
room, and had the fair colouring and sturdy
frame which matched his Swedish name. He
was naturally dramatic. It was easy to see
that he instinctively visualised everything, and
this he did so strongly that he suggested to
the onlooker every detail of the scene.
He chose for his grape-trellis the rear wall
of the room.
Standing there, he looked longingly up at
the invisible bunch of grapes. "My gracious,"
he said, "what fine grapes! I will have
some."
Then he jumped for them.
"Didn't get them," he muttered, "I'll try
again," and he jumped higher.
"Didn't get them this time," he said
disgustedly, and hopped up once more. Then he
stood still, looked up, shrugged his shoulders,
and remarked in an absurdly worldly-wise tone,
"Those grapes are sour!" After which he
walked away.
Of course the whole thing was infantile, and
without a touch of grace; but it is no
exaggeration to say that the child did what many
grown-up actors fail to do,--he preserved the
illusion.
It was in still another room that I saw the
lion and mouse fable played.
The lion lay flat on the floor for his nap,
but started up when he found his paw laid on
the little mouse, who crouched as small as she
could beside him. (The mouse was by nature
rather larger than the lion, but she called
what art she might to her assistance) The
mouse persuaded the lion to lift his paw, and
ran away.
Presently a most horrific groaning emanated
from the lion. The mouse ran up, looked him
over, and soliloquised in precise language,--
evidently remembered, "What is the matter
with the lion? Oh, I see; he is caught in a
trap." And then she gnawed with her teeth
at the imaginary rope which bound him.
"What makes you so kind to me, little Mouse?"
said the rescued lion.
"You let me go, when I asked you," said the
mouse demurely.
"Thank you, little Mouse," answered the
lion; and therewith, finis.
It is not impossible that all this play
atmosphere may seem incongruous and unnecessary
to teachers used to more conventional methods,
but I feel sure that an actual experience of it
would modify that point of view conclusively.
The children of the schools where story-telling
and "dramatising" were practised were startlingly
better in reading, in attentiveness, and
in general power of expression, than the pupils
of like social conditions in the same grades of
other cities which I visited soon after, and in
which the more conventional methods were
exclusively used. The teachers, also, were
stronger in power of expression.
But the most noticeable, though the least
tangible, difference was in the moral atmosphere
of the schoolroom. There had been a great
gain in vitality in all the rooms where stories
were a part of the work. It had acted and
reacted on pupils and teachers alike. The telling
of a story well so depends on being thoroughly
vitalised that, naturally, habitual telling had
resulted in habitual vitalisation.
This result was not, of course, wholly due to
the practice of story-telling, but it was in some
measure due to that. And it was a result worth
the effort.
I beg to urge these specific uses of stories, as
both recreative and developing, and as especially
tending toward enlarged power of expression:
retelling the story; illustrating the story in seat-
work; dramatisation.
STORIES SELECTED AND ADAPTED FOR TELLING
ESPECIALLY FOR KINDERGARTEN AND CLASS I.
Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown,
Rapping at the window, crying through the lock,
"Are the children in their beds, for now it's eight o'clock?"
There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
Cushy cow bonny, let down thy milk,
And I will give thee a gown of silk;
A gown of silk and a silver tee,
If thou wilt let down thy milk to me.
"Little girl, little girl, where have you been?"
"Gathering roses to give to the queen."
"Little girl, little girl, what gave she you?"
"She gave me a diamond as big as my shoe."
Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep,
And can't tell where to find them;
Leave them alone, and they'll come home,
And bring their tails behind them.
Little Bo peep fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard them bleating;
But when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For still they all were fleeting.
Then up she took her little crook,
Determin'd for to find them;
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they'd left their tails behind them.
FIVE LITTLE WHITE HEADS[1]
BY WALTER LEARNED
[1] From Mother-Song and Child-Song, Charlotte Brewster
Jordan.
Five little white heads peeped out of the mould,
When the dew was damp and the night was cold;
And they crowded their way through the soil with pride;
"Hurrah! We are going to be mushrooms!" they cried
But the sun came up, and the sun shone down,
And the little white heads were withered and brown;
Long were their faces, their pride had a fall--
They were nothing but toadstools, after all.
BIRD THOUGHTS[2]
[2] Ibid.
I lived first in a little house,
And lived there very well;
I thought the world was small and round,
And made of pale blue shell.
I lived next in a little nest,
Nor needed any other;
I thought the world was made of straw,
And brooded by my mother.
One day I fluttered from the nest
To see what I could find.
I said, "The world is made of leaves;
I have been very blind."
At length I flew beyond the tree,
Quite fit for grown-up labours.
I don't know how the world IS made,
And neither do my neighbours!
HOW WE CAME TO HAVE PINK ROSES[1]
[1] Told me by Miss Elizabeth McCracken.
Once, ever and ever so long ago, we didn't have
any pink roses. All the roses in the world were
white. There weren't any red ones at all, any
yellow ones, or any pink ones,--only white roses.
And one morning, very early, a little white
rosebud woke up, and saw the sun looking at
her. He stared so hard that the little white
rosebud did not know what to do; so she looked
up at him and said, "Why are you looking at me
so hard?"
"Because you are so pretty!" said the big
round sun. And the little white rosebud
blushed! She blushed pink. And all her
children after her were little pink roses!
RAGGYLUG[2]
[2] Adapted from Mr Ernest Thompson Seton's Wild Animals
I have known. (David Nutt, 57-59 Long Acre, W.C. 6s. net.)
Once there was a little furry rabbit, who lived
with his mother deep down in a nest under the
long grass. His name was Raggylug, and his
mother's name was Molly Cottontail. Every
morning, when Molly Cottontail went out to hunt
for food, she said to Raggylug, "Now, Raggylug,
lie still, and make no noise. No matter what you
hear, no matter what you see, don't you move.
Remember you are only a baby rabbit, and lie
low." And Raggylug always said he would.
One day, after his mother had gone, he was
lying very still in the nest, looking up through
the feathery grass. By just cocking his eye,
so, he could see what was going on up in the
world. Once a big bluejay perched on a twig
above him, and scolded someone very loudly;
he kept saying, "Thief! thief!" But Raggylug
never moved his nose, nor his paws; he lay still.
Once a lady-bird took a walk down a blade of
grass, over his head; she was so top-heavy that
pretty soon she tumbled off and fell to the bottom,
and had to begin all over again. But Raggylug
never moved his nose nor his paws; he lay still.
The sun was warm, and it was very still.
Suddenly Raggylug heard a little sound, far
off. It sounded like "Swish, swish," very soft
and far away. He listened. It was a queer
little sound, low down in the grass, "rustle--
rustle--rustle"; Raggylug was interested. But
he never moved his nose or his paws; he lay
still. Then the sound came nearer, "rustle--
rustle--rustle"; then grew fainter, then came
nearer; in and out, nearer and nearer, like
something coming; only, when Raggylug heard
anything coming he always heard its feet, stepping
ever so softly. What could it be that came
so smoothly,--rustle--rustle without any feet?
He forgot his mother's warning, and sat up
on his hind paws; the sound stopped then.
"Pooh," thought Raggylug, "I'm not a baby
rabbit, I am three weeks old; I'll find out what
this is." He stuck his head over the top of the
nest, and looked--straight into the wicked eyes
of a great big snake. "Mammy, Mammy!"
screamed Raggylug. "Oh, Mammy, Mam----"
But he couldn't scream any more, for the big
snake had his ear in his mouth and was
winding about the soft little body, squeezing
Raggylug's life out. He tried to call "Mammy!"
again, but he could not breathe.
Ah, but Mammy had heard the first cry.
Straight over the fields she flew, leaping the
stones and hummocks, fast as the wind, to save
her baby. She wasn't a timid little cottontail
rabbit then; she was a mother whose child was
in danger. And when she came to Raggylug
and the big snake, she took one look, and then
hop! hop! she went over the snake's back; and
as she jumped she struck at the snake with her
strong hind claws so that they tore his skin.
He hissed with rage, but he did not let go.
Hop! hop! she went again, and this time she
hurt him so that he twisted and turned; but he
held on to Raggylug.
Once more the mother rabbit hopped, and
once more she struck and tore the snake's back
with her sharp claws. Zzz! How she hurt!
The snake dropped Raggy to strike at her, and
Raggy rolled on to his feet and ran.
"Run, Raggylug, run!" said his mother,
keeping the snake busy with her jumps; and
you may believe Raggylug ran! Just as soon
as he was out of the way his mother came too,
and showed him where to go. When she ran,
there was a little white patch that showed
under her tail; that was for Raggy to follow,
--he followed it now.
Far, far away she led him, through the long
grass, to a place where the big snake could not
find him, and there she made a new nest. And
this time, when she told Raggylug to lie low
you'd better believe he minded!
THE GOLDEN COBWEBS[1]
A STORY TO TELL BY THE CHRISTMAS TREE
[1] This story was told me in the mother-tongue of a German
friend, at the kindly instance of a common friend of both;
the narrator had heard it at home from the lips of a father
of story-loving children for whom ho often invented such
little tales. The present adaptation has passed by hearsay
through so many minds that it is perhaps little like the
original, but I venture to hope it has a touch of the original
fancy, at least.
I am going to tell you a story about something
wonderful that happened to a Christmas
Tree like this, ever and ever so long ago, when
it was once upon a time.
It was before Christmas, and the tree was
trimmed with bright spangled threads and
many-coloured candles and (name the trimmings
of the tree before you), and it stood
safely out of sight in a room where the doors
were locked, so that the children should not
see it before the proper time. But ever so
many other little house-people had seen it.
The big black pussy saw it with her great
green eyes; the little grey kitty saw it with
her little blue eyes; the kind house-dog saw
it with his steady brown eyes; the yellow
canary saw it with his wise, bright eyes. Even
the wee, wee mice that were so afraid of the
cat had peeped one peep when no one was by.
But there was someone who hadn't seen the
Christmas tree. It was the little grey spider!
You see, the spiders lived in the corners,--
the warm corners of the sunny attic and the
dark corners of the nice cellar. And they were
expecting to see the Christmas Tree as much
as anybody. But just before Christmas a great
cleaning-up began in the house. The house-
mother came sweeping and dusting and wiping
and scrubbing, to make everything grand and
clean for the Christ-child's birthday. Her broom
went into all the corners, poke, poke,--and of
course the spiders had to run. Dear, dear, HOW
the spiders had to run! Not one could stay
in the house while the Christmas cleanness
lasted. So, you see, they couldn't see the
Christmas Tree.
Spiders like to know all about everything,
and see all there is to see, and these were very
sad. So at last they went to the Christ-child
and told him about it.
"All the others see the Christmas Tree, dear
Christ-child," they said; "but we, who are so
domestic and so fond of beautiful things, we are
CLEANED UP! We cannot see it, at all."
The Christ-child was sorry for the little
spiders when he heard this, and he said they
should see the Christmas Tree.
The day before Christmas, when nobody was
noticing, he let them all go in, to look as long
as ever they liked.
They came creepy, creepy, down the attic
stairs, creepy, creepy, up the cellar stairs,
creepy, creepy, along the halls,--and into the
beautiful room. The fat mother spiders and
the old papa spiders were there, and all the
little teeny, tiny, curly spiders, the baby ones.
And then they looked! Round and round the
tree they crawled, and looked and looked and
looked. Oh, what a good time they had! They
thought it was perfectly beautiful. And when
they had looked at everything they could see
from the floor, they started up the tree to see
more. All over the tree they ran, creepy,
crawly, looking at every single thing. Up and
down, in and out, over every branch and twig,
the little spiders ran, and saw every one of the
pretty things right up close.
They stayed till they had seen all there was
to see, you may be sure, and then they went
away at last, QUITE happy.
Then, in the still, dark night before Christmas
Day, the dear Christ-child came, to bless the
tree for the children. But when he looked at
it--WHAT do you suppose?--it was covered with
cobwebs! Everywhere the little spiders had
been they had left a spider-web; and you know
they had been everywhere. So the tree was
covered from its trunk to its tip with spider-
webs, all hanging from the branches and looped
round the twigs; it was a strange sight.
What could the Christ-child do? He knew
that house-mothers do not like cobwebs; it
would never, never do to have a Christmas
Tree covered with those. No, indeed.
So the dear Christ-child touched the spider's
webs, and turned them all to gold! Wasn't
that a lovely trimming? They shone and shone,
all over the beautiful tree. And that is the way
the Christmas Tree came to have golden cob-
webs on it.
WHY THE MORNING-GLORY CLIMBS[1]
[1] This story was given me by Miss Elisabeth McCracken,
who wrote it some years ago in a larger form, and who told
it to me in the way she had told it to many children of her
acquaintance.
Once the Morning-Glory was flat on the
ground. She grew that way, and she had
never climbed at all. Up in the top of a tree
near her lived Mrs Jennie Wren and her little
baby Wren. The little Wren was lame; he
had a broken wing and couldn't fly. He stayed
in the nest all day. But the mother Wren told
him all about what she saw in the world, when
she came flying home at night. She used to
tell him about the beautiful Morning-Glory she
saw on the ground. She told him about the
Morning-Glory every day, until the little Wren
was filled with a desire to see her for himself.
"How I wish I could see the Morning-
Glory!" he said.
The Morning-Glory heard this, and she
longed to let the little Wren see her face.
She pulled herself along the ground, a little at
a time, until she was at the foot of the tree
where the little Wren lived. But she could
not get any farther, because she did not know
how to climb. At last she wanted to go up so
much, that she caught hold of the bark of the
tree, and pulled herself up a little. And little
by little, before she knew it, she was climbing.
And she climbed right up the tree to the
little Wren's nest, and put her sweet face over
the edge of the nest, where the little Wren
could see.
That was how the Morning-Glory came to climb.
THE STORY OF LITTLE TAVWOTS[1]
[1] Adapted from The Basket Woman, by Mary Austin.
This is the story an Indian woman told a
little white boy who lived with his father and
mother near the Indians' country; and Tavwots
is the name of the little rabbit.
But once, long ago, Tavwots was not little,
--he was the largest of all four-footed things,
and a mighty hunter. He used to hunt every
day; as soon as it was day, and light enough
to see, he used to get up, and go to his hunting.
But every day he saw the track of a great foot
on the trail, before him. This troubled him, for
his pride was as big as his body.
"Who is this," he cried, "that goes before
me to the hunting, and makes so great a stride?
Does he think to put me to shame?"
"T'-sst!" said his mother, "there is none
greater than thou."
"Still, there are the footprints in the trail,"
said Tavwots.
And the next morning he got up earlier; but
still the great footprints and the mighty stride
were before him. The next morning he got up
still earlier; but there were the mighty foot-
tracks and the long, long stride.
"Now I will set me a trap for this impudent
fellow," said Tavwots, for he was very cunning.
So he made a snare of his bowstring and set it
in the trail overnight.
And when in the morning he went to look,
behold, he had caught the sun in his snare!
All that part of the earth was beginning to
smoke with the heat of it.
"Is it you who made the tracks in my trail?"
cried Tavwots.
"It is I," said the sun; "come and set me
free, before the whole earth is afire."
Then Tavwots saw what he had to do,
and he drew his sharp hunting-knife and ran
to cut the bowstring. But the heat was so
great that he ran back before he had done
it; and when he ran back he was melted
down to half his size! Then the earth began
to burn, and the smoke curled up against the
sky.
"Come again, Tavwots," cried the sun.
And Tavwots ran again to cut the bowstring.
But the heat was so great that he ran back
before he had done it, and he was melted down
to a quarter of his size!
"Come again, Tavwots, and quickly," cried
the sun, "or all the world will be burnt up."
And Tavwots ran again; this time he cut the
bowstring and set the sun free. But when he
got back he was melted down to the size he is
now! Only one thing is left of all his greatness:
you may still see by the print of his feet as he
leaps in the trail, how great his stride was when
he caught the sun in his snare.
THE PIG BROTHER[1]
[1] From The Golden Windows, by Laura E. Richards. (H. R.
Allenson Ltd. 2s. 6d, net.)
There was once a child who was untidy. He
left his books on the floor, and his muddy shoes
on the table; he put his fingers in the jam pots,
and spilled ink on his best pinafore; there was
really no end to his untidiness.
One day the Tidy Angel came into his
nursery.
"This will never do!" said the Angel. "This
is really shocking. You must go out and stay
with your brother while I set things to rights
here."
"I have no brother!" said the child.
"Yes, you have," said the Angel. "You may
not know him, but he will know you. Go out
in the garden and watch for him, and he will
soon come."
"I don't know what you mean!" said the
child; but he went out into the garden and
waited.
Presently a squirrel came along, whisking his
tail.
"Are you my brother?" asked the child.
The squirrel looked him over carefully.
"Well, I should hope not!" he said. "My
fur is neat and smooth, my nest is handsomely
made, and in perfect order, and my young ones
are properly brought up. Why do you insult
me by asking such a question?"
He whisked off, and the child waited.
Presently a wren came hopping by.
"Are you my brother?" asked the child.
"No, indeed!" said the wren. "What
impertinence! You will find no tidier person than
I in the whole garden. Not a feather is out of
place, and my eggs are the wonder of all for
smoothness and beauty. Brother, indeed!"
He hopped off, ruffling his feathers, and the
child waited.
By-and-by a large Tommy Cat came along.
"Are you my brother?" asked the child.
"Go and look at yourself in the glass," said
the Tommy Cat haughtily, "and you will have
your answer. I have been washing myself in
the sun all the morning, while it is clear that no
water has come near you for a long time. There
are no such creatures as you in my family, I am
humbly thankful to say."
He walked on, waving his tail, and the child
waited.
Presently a pig came trotting along.
The child did not wish to ask the pig if he were
his brother, but the pig did not wait to be asked.
"Hallo, brother!" he grunted.
"I am not your brother!" said the child.
"Oh yes, you are!" said the pig. "I confess
I am not proud of you, but there is no mistaking
the members of our family. Come along, and
have a good roll in the barnyard! There is
some lovely black mud there."
"I don't like to roll in mud!" said the child.
"Tell that to the hens!" said the Pig Brother.
"Look at your hands and your shoes, and your
pinafore! Come along, I say! You may have
some of the pig-wash for supper, if there is more
than I want."
"I don't want pig-wash!" said the child; and
he began to cry.
Just then the Tidy Angel came out.
"I have set everything to rights," she said,
"and so it must stay. Now, will you go with
the Pig Brother, or will you come back with me,
and be a tidy child?"
"With you, with you!" cried the child; and
he clung to the Angel's dress.
The Pig Brother grunted.
"Small loss!" he said. "There will be all
the more wash for me!" And he trotted off.
THE CAKE[1]
[1] From The Golden Windows, by Laura E Richards. (H. R.
Allenson Ltd. 2s 6d. net.)
A child quarrelled with his brother one day
about a cake.
"It is my cake!" said the child.
"No, it is mine!" said his brother.
"You shall not have it!" said the child.
"Give it to me this minute!" And he fell upon
his brother and beat him.
Just then came by an Angel who knew the
child.
"Who is this that you are beating?" asked
the Angel.
"It is my brother," said the child.
"No, but truly," said the Angel, "who is
it?"
"It is my brother, I tell you!" said the child.
"Oh no," said the Angel, "that cannot be;
and it seems a pity for you to tell an untruth,
because that makes spots on your soul. If it
were your brother, you would not beat him."
"But he has my cake!" said the child.
"Oh," said the Angel, "now I see my
mistake. You mean that the cake is your brother;
and that seems a pity, too, for it does not look
like a very good cake,--and, besides, it is all
crumbled to pieces."
THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN TOWN[1]
[1] From traditions, with rhymes from Browning's The Pied
Piper of Hamelin.
Once I made a pleasure trip to a country
called Germany; and I went to a funny little
town, where all the streets ran uphill. At the
top there was a big mountain, steep like the
roof of a house, and at the bottom there was a
big river, broad and slow. And the funniest
thing about the little town was that all the shops
had the same thing in them; bakers' shops,
grocers' shops, everywhere we went we saw the
same thing,--big chocolate rats, rats and mice,
made out of chocolate. We were so surprised
that after a while, "Why do you have rats in
your shops?" we asked.
"Don't you know this is Hamelin town?"
they said. "What of that?" said we. "Why,
Hamelin town is where the Pied Piper came,"
they told us; "surely you know about the Pied
Piper?" "WHAT about the Pied Piper?" we
said. And this is what they told us about
him.
It seems that once, long, long ago, that little
town was dreadfully troubled with rats. The
houses were full of them, the shops were full of
them, the churches were full of them, they were
EVERYWHERE. The people were all but eaten out
of house and home. Those rats,
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats!
At last it got so bad that the people simply
couldn't stand it any longer. So they all came
together and went to the town hall, and they
said to the Mayor (you know what a mayor is?),
"See here, what do we pay you your salary for?
What are you good for, if you can't do a little
thing like getting rid of these rats? You must
go to work and clear the town of them; find
the remedy that's lacking, or--we'll send you
packing!"
Well, the poor Mayor was in a terrible way.
What to do he didn't know. He sat with his
head in his hands, and thought and thought and
thought.
Suddenly there came a little rat-tat at the
door. Oh! how the Mayor jumped! His poor
old heart went pit-a-pat at anything like the
sound of a rat. But it was only the scraping of
shoes on the mat. So the Mayor sat up, and
said, "Come in!"
And in came the strangest figure! It was a
man, very tall and very thin, with a sharp chin
and a mouth where the smiles went out and in,
and two blue eyes, each like a pin; and he was
dressed half in red and half in yellow--he really
was the strangest fellow!--and round his neck
he had a long red and yellow ribbon, and on it
was hung a thing something like a flute, and
his fingers went straying up and down it as if
he wanted to be playing.
He came up to the Mayor and said, "I hear
you are troubled with rats in this town."
"I should say we were," groaned the Mayor.
"Would you like to get rid of them? I can
do it for you."
"You can?" cried the Mayor. "How? Who
are you?"
"Men call me the Pied Piper," said the man,
"and I know a way to draw after me everything
that walks, or flies, or swims. What
will you give me if I rid your town of rats?"
"Anything, anything," said the Mayor. "I
don't believe you can do it, but if you can, I'll
give you a thousand guineas."
"All right," said the Piper, "it is a bargain."
And then he went to the door and stepped
out into the street and stood, and put the long
flute-like thing to his lips, and began to play a
little tune. A strange, high, little tune. And
before
three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling I
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives--
Followed the Piper for their lives!
From street to street he piped, advancing,
from street to street they followed, dancing.
Up one street and down another, till they came
to the edge of the big river, and there the piper
turned sharply about and stepped aside, and all
those rats tumbled hurry skurry, head over heels,
down the bank into the river AND--WERE--
DROWNED. Every single one. No, there was
one big old fat rat; he was so fat he didn't
sink, and he swam across, and ran away to tell
the tale.
Then the Piper came back to the town hall.
And all the people were waving their hats and
shouting for joy. The Mayor said they would
have a big celebration, and build a tremendous
bonfire in the middle of the town. He asked
the Piper to stay and see the bonfire,--very
politely.
"Yes," said the Piper, "that will be very
nice; but first, if you please, I should like my
thousand guineas."
"H'm,--er--ahem!" said the Mayor. "You
mean that little joke of mine; of course that
was a joke." (You see it is always harder to
pay for a thing when you no longer need it.)
"I do not joke," said the Piper very quietly;
"my thousand guineas, if you please."
"Oh, come, now," said the Mayor, "you
know very well it wasn't worth sixpence to
play a little tune like that; call it one guinea,
and let it go at that."
"A bargain is a bargain," said the Piper;
"for the last time,--will you give me my
thousand guineas?"
"I'll give you a pipe of tobacco, something
good to eat, and call you lucky at that!" said
the Mayor, tossing his head.
Then the Piper's mouth grew strange and
thin, and sharp blue and green lights began
dancing in his eyes, and he said to the Mayor
very softly, "I know another tune than that I
played; I play it to those who play me false."
"Play what you please! You can't frighten
me! Do your worst!" said the Mayor, making
himself big.
Then the Piper stood high up on the steps
of the town hall, and put the pipe to his lips,
and began to play a little tune. It was quite
a different little tune, this time, very soft and
sweet, and very, very strange. And before he
had played three notes, you heard
a rustling, that seemed like a bustling
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling;
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering,
And like fowls in a farmyard when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.
"Stop, stop!" cried the people. "He is taking
our children! Stop him, Mr Mayor!"
"I will give you your money, I will!" cried
the Mayor, and tried to run after the Piper.
But the very same music that made the
children dance made the grown-up people stand
stock-still; it was as if their feet had been tied
to the ground; they could not move a muscle.
There they stood and saw the Piper move slowly
down the street, playing his little tune, with the
children at his heels. On and on he went; on
and on the children danced; till he came to the
bank of the river.
"Oh, oh! He will drown our children in the
river!" cried the people. But the Piper turned
and went along by the bank, and all the children
followed after. Up, and up, and up the
hill they went, straight toward the mountain
which is like the roof of a house. And just
as they got to it, the mountain OPENED,--like two
great doors, and the Piper went in through the
opening, playing the little tune, and the children
danced after him--and--just as they got through
--the great doors slid together again and shut
them all in! Every single one. No, there was
one little lame child, who couldn't keep up with
the rest and didn't get there in time. But none
of his little companions ever came back any
more, not one.
But years and years afterward, when the
fat old rat who swam across the river was a
grandfather, his children used to ask him,
"What made you follow the music, Grandfather?"
and he used to tell them, "My dears,
when I heard that tune I thought I heard the
moving aside of pickle-tub boards, and the leaving
ajar of preserve cupboards, and I smelled the
most delicious old cheese in the world, and I saw
sugar barrels ahead of me; and then, just as a
great yellow cheese seemed to be saying, `Come,
bore me'--I felt the river rolling o'er me!"
And in the same way the people asked
the little lame child, "What made you follow
the music?" "I do not know what the others
heard," he said, "but I, when the Piper began
to play, I heard a voice that told of a wonderful
country hard by, where the bees had no
stings and the horses had wings, and the trees
bore wonderful fruits, where no one was tired
or lame, and children played all day; and just
as the beautiful country was but one step away
--the mountain closed on my playmates, and
I was left alone."
That was all the people ever knew. The
children never came back. All that was left
of the Piper and the rats was just the big street
that led to the river; so they called it the
Street of the Pied Piper.
And that is the end of the story.
WHY THE EVERGREEN TREES KEEP THEIR LEAVES IN WINTER[1]
[1] Adapted from Florence Holbrook's A Book of Nature
Myths. (Harrap & Co. 9d.)
One day, a long, long time ago, it was very
cold; winter was coming. And all the birds flew
away to the warm south, to wait for the
spring. But one little bird had a broken
wing and could not fly. He did not know
what to do. He looked all round, to see if
there was any place where he could keep warm.
And he saw the trees of the great forest.
"Perhaps the trees will keep me warm
through the winter," he said.
So he went to the edge of the forest, hopping
and fluttering with his broken wing. The first
tree he came to was a slim silver birch.
"Beautiful birch-tree," he said, "will you let
me live in your warm branches until the springtime
comes?"
"Dear me!" said the birch-tree, "what a thing
to ask! I have to take care of my own leaves
through the winter; that is enough for me. Go
away."
The little bird hopped and fluttered with his
broken wing until he came to the next tree. It
was a great, big oak-tree.
"O big oak-tree," said the little bird, "will
you let me live in your warm branches until the
springtime comes?"
"Dear me," said the oak-tree, "what a thing
to ask! If you stay in my branches all winter
you will be eating my acorns. Go away."
So the little bird hopped and fluttered with
his broken wing till he came to the willow-tree
by the edge of the brook.
"O beautiful willow-tree," said the little bird,
"will you let me live in your warm branches
until the springtime comes?"
"No, indeed," said the willow-tree; "I never
speak to strangers. Go away."
The poor little bird did not know where to
go; but he hopped and fluttered along with his
broken wing. Presently the spruce-tree saw
him, and said, "Where are you going, little bird?"
"I do not know," said the bird; "the trees
will not let me live with them, and my wing
is broken so that I cannot fly."
"You may live on one of my branches," said
the spruce; "here is the warmest one of all."
"But may I stay all winter?"
"Yes," said the spruce; "I shall like to have
you."
The pine-tree stood beside the spruce, and
when he saw the little bird hopping and fluttering
with his broken wing, he said, "My branches
are not very warm, but I can keep the wind off
because I am big and strong."
So the little bird fluttered up into the warm
branch of the spruce, and the pine-tree kept the
wind off his house; then the juniper-tree saw
what was going on, and said that she would
give the little bird his dinner all the winter,
from her branches. Juniper berries are very
good for little birds.
The little bird was very comfortable in his
warm nest sheltered from the wind, with juniper
berries to eat.
The trees at the edge of the forest remarked
upon it to each other:
"I wouldn't take care of a strange bird," said
the birch.
"I wouldn't risk my acorns," said the oak.
"I would not speak to strangers," said the
willow. And the three trees stood up very tall
and proud.
That night the North Wind came to the
woods to play. He puffed at the leaves with
his icy breath, and every leaf he touched fell
to the ground. He wanted to touch every leaf
in the forest, for he loved to see the trees
bare.
"May I touch every leaf?" he said to his
father, the Frost King.
"No," said the Frost King, "the trees which
were kind to the bird with the broken wing may
keep their leaves."
So North Wind had to leave them alone, and
the spruce, the pine, and the juniper-tree kept
their leaves through all the winter. And they
have done so ever since.
THE STAR DOLLARS[1]
[1] Adapted from Grimms' Fairy Tales.
There was once a little girl who was very,
very poor. Her father and mother had died,
and at last she had no little room to stay in,
and no little bed to sleep in, and nothing more
to eat except one piece of bread. So she said
a prayer, put on her little jacket and her hood,
and took her piece of bread in her hand, and
went out into the world.
When she had walked a little way, she met
an old man, bent and thin. He looked at the
piece of bread in her hand, and said, "Will you
give me your bread, little girl? I am very
hungry." The little girl said, "Yes," and gave
him her piece of bread.
When she had walked a little farther she
came upon a child, sitting by the path, crying.
"I am so cold!" said the child. "Won't you
give me your little hood, to keep my head
warm?" The little girl took off her hood and
tied it on the child's head. Then she went on
her way.
After a time, as she went, she met another
child. This one shivered with the cold, and she
said to the little girl, "Won't you give me your
jacket, little girl?" And the little girl gave her
her jacket. Then she went on again.
By-and-by she saw another child, crouching
almost naked by the wayside. "O little girl,"
said the child, "won't you give me your dress?
I have nothing to keep me warm." So the little
girl took off her dress and gave it to the other
child. And now she had nothing left but her
little shirt. It grew dark, and the wind was
cold, and the little girl crept into the woods, to
sleep for the night. But in the woods a child
stood, weeping and naked. "I am cold," she
said, "give me your little shirt!" And the
little girl thought, "It is dark, and the woods
will shelter me; I will give her my little shirt";
so she did, and now she had nothing left in all
the world.
She stood looking up at the sky, to say her
night-time prayer. As she looked up, the whole
skyful of stars fell in a shower round her feet.
There they were, on the ground, shining bright,
and round. The little girl saw that they were
silver dollars. And in the midst of them was
the finest little shirt, all woven out of silk! The
little girl put on the little silk shirt, and gathered
the star dollars; and she was rich, all the days
of her life.
THE LION AND THE GNAT[1]
[1] This story has been told by the Rev. Albert E. Sims to
children in many parts of England. On one occasion it was
told to an audience of over three thousand children in the
Great Assembly Hall, Mile End, London.
Far away in Central Africa, that vast land
where dense forests and wild beasts abound,
the shades of night were once more descending,
warning all creatures that it was time to seek
repose.
All day long the sun had been like a great
burning eye, but now, after painting the western
sky with crimson and scarlet and gold, he had
disappeared into his fleecy bed; the various
creatures of the forest had sought their holes
and resting-places; the last sound had rumbled
its rumble, the last bee had mumbled his mumble,
and the last bear had grumbled his grumble;
even the grasshoppers that had been chirruping,
chirruping, through all the long hours without
a pause, at length had ceased their shrill music,
tucked up their long legs, and given themselves
to slumber.
There on a nodding grass-blade, a tiny Gnat
had made a swinging couch, and he too had folded
his wings, closed his tiny eyes, and was fast asleep.
Darker, darker, darker became the night until
the darkness could almost be felt, and over all
was a solemn stillness as though some powerful
finger had been raised, and some potent voice
had whispered, "HU--SH!"
Just when all was perfectly still, there came
suddenly from the far away depths of the
forest, like the roll of thunder, a mighty
ROAR--R--R--R!
In a moment all the beasts and birds were
wide awake, and the poor little Gnat was nearly
frightened out of his little senses, and his little
heart went pit-a-pat. He rubbed his little eyes
with his feelers, and then peered all around
trying to penetrate the deep gloom as he
whispered in terror--"WHAT--WAS--THAT?"
What do YOU think it was? . . . Yes, a
LION! A great, big lion who, while most other
denizens of the forest slept, was out hunting for
prey. He came rushing and crashing through
the thick undergrowth of the forest, swirling
his long tail and opening wide his great jaws,
and as he rushed he RO-AR-R-R-ED!
Presently he reached the spot where the little
Gnat hung panting at the tip of the waving
grass-blade. Now the little Gnat was not afraid
of lions, so when he saw it was only a lion, he
cried out--
"Hi, stop, stop! What are you making that
horrible noise about?"
The Lion stopped short, then backed slowly
and regarded the Gnat with scorn.
"Why, you tiny, little, mean, insignificant
creature you, how DARE you speak to ME?" he
raged.
"How dare I speak to you?" repeated the
Gnat quietly. "By the virtue of RIGHT, which
is always greater than MIGHT. Why don't you
keep to your own part of the forest? What
right have you to be here, disturbing folks at
this time of night?"
By a mighty effort the Lion restrained his
anger--he knew that to obtain mastery over
others one must be master over oneself.
"What RIGHT?" he repeated in dignified tones.
"BECAUSE I'M KING OF THE FOREST. That's why.
I can do no wrong, for all the other creatures of
the forest are afraid of me. I DO what I please,
I SAY what I please, I EAT whom I please, I GO
where I please--simply because I'm King of the
Forest."
"But who told you you were King?" demanded
the Gnat. "Just answer me that!"
"Who told ME?" roared the Lion. "Why,
everyone acknowledges it--don't I tell you that
everyone is afraid of me?"
"Indeed!" cried the Gnat disdainfully.
"Pray don't say ALL, for I'm not afraid of you.
And further, I deny your right to be King."
This was too much for the Lion. He now
worked himself into a perfect fury.
"You--you--YOU deny my right as King?"
"I DO, and, what is more, you shall never be
King until you have fought and conquered me."
The Lion laughed a great lion laugh, and a
lion laugh cannot be laughed at like a cat laugh,
as everyone ought to know.
"Fight--did you say fight?" he asked.
"Who ever heard of a lion fighting a gnat?
Here, out of my way, you atom of nothing!
I'll blow you to the other end of the world."
But though the Lion puffed his cheeks until
they were like great bellows, and then blew
with all his might, he could not disturb the
little Gnat's hold on the swaying grass-blade.
"You'll blow all your whiskers away if you
are not careful," he said, with a laugh--"but
you won't move me. And if you dare leave this
spot without fighting me, I'll tell all the beasts
of the forest that you are afraid of me, and
they'll make ME King."
"Ho, ho!" roared the Lion. "Very well,
since you will fight, let it be so."
"You agree to the conditions, then? The
one who conquers shall be King?"
"Oh, certainly," laughed the Lion, for he
expected an easy victory. "Are you ready?"
"Quite ready."
"Then--GO!" roared the Lion.
And with that he sprang forward with open
jaws, thinking he could easily swallow a million
gnats. But just as the great jaws were about
to close upon the blade of grass whereto the
Gnat clung, what should happen but that the
Gnat suddenly spread his wings and nimbly
flew--where do you think?--right into one of
the Lion's nostrils! And there he began to
sting, sting, sting. The Lion wondered, and
thundered, and blundered--but the Gnat went
on stinging; he foamed, and he moaned, and he
groaned--still the Gnat went on stinging; he
rubbed his head on the ground in agony,
he swirled his tail in furious passion, he roared,
he spluttered, he sniffed, he snuffed--and still
the Gnat went on stinging.
"O my poor nose, my nose, my nose!" the
Lion began to moan. "Come down, come
DOWN, come DOWN! My nose, my NOSE, my
NOSE!! You're King of the Forest, you're
King, you're King--only come down. My nose,
my NOSE, my NOSE!"
So at last the Gnat flew out from the Lion's
nostril and went back to his waving grass-
blade, while the Lion slunk away into the
depths of the forest with his tail between his
legs--BEATEN, and by a tiny Gnat!
"What a fine fellow am I, to be sure!"
exclaimed the Gnat, aa he proudly plumed his
wings. "I've beaten a lion--a LION! Dear
me, I ought to have been King long ago, I'm so
clever, so big, so strong--OH!"
The Gnat's frightened cry was caused by
finding himself entangled in some silky sort of
threads. While gloating over his victory, the
wind had risen, and his grass-blade had swayed
violently to and fro unnoticed by him. A
stronger gust than usual had bent the blade
downward close to the ground, and then something
caught it and held it fast and with it the
victorious Gnat. Oh, the desperate struggles
he made to get free! Alas! he became more
entangled than ever. You can guess what it
was--a spider's web, hung out from the over-
hanging branch of a tree. Then--flipperty-
flopperty, flipperty--flopperty, flop, flip, flop--
down his stairs came cunning Father Spider
and quickly gobbled up the little Gnat for his
supper, and that was the end of him.
A strong Lion--and what overcame him? A
GNAT.
A clever Gnat--and what overcame him? A
SPIDER'S WEB! He who had beaten the strong
lion had been overcome by the subtle snare of
a spider's thread.
ESPECIALLY FOR CLASSES II. AND III.
THE CAT AND THE PARROT
Once there was a cat, and a parrot. And they
had agreed to ask each other to dinner, turn
and turn about: first the cat should ask the
parrot, then the parrot should invite the cat,
and so on. It was the cat's turn first.
Now the cat was very mean. He provided
nothing at all for dinner except a pint of milk,
a little slice of fish, and a biscuit. The parrot
was too polite to complain, but he did not have
a very good time.
When it was his turn to invite the cat, he
cooked a fine dinner. He had a roast of meat,
a pot of tea, a basket of fruit, and, best of all,
he baked a whole clothes-basketful of little
cakes!--little, brown, crispy, spicy cakes! Oh,
I should say as many as five hundred. And he
put four hundred and ninety-eight of the cakes
before the cat, keeping only two for himself.
Well, the cat ate the roast, and drank the
tea, and sucked the fruit, and then he began
on the pile of cakes. He ate all the four
hundred and ninety-eight cakes, and then he
looked round and said:--
"I'm hungry; haven't you anything to eat?"
"Why," said the parrot, "here are my two
cakes, if you want them?"
The cat ate up the two cakes, and then he
licked his chops and said, "I am beginning
to get an appetite; have you anything to
eat?"
"Well, really," said the parrot, who was now
rather angry, "I don't see anything more, unless
you wish to eat me!" He thought the cat
would be ashamed when he heard that--but
the cat just looked at him and licked his
chops again,--and slip! slop! gobble! down
his throat went the parrot!
Then the cat started down the street. An
old woman was standing by, and she had seen
the whole thing, and she was shocked that the
cat should eat his friend. "Why, cat!" she
said, "how dreadful of you to eat your friend
the parrot!"
"Parrot, indeed!" said the cat. "What's a
parrot to me?--I've a great mind to eat you,
too." And--before you could say "Jack
Robinson"--slip! slop! gobble! down went
the old woman!
Then the cat started down the road again,
walking like this, because he felt so fine.
Pretty soon he met a man driving a donkey.
The man was beating the donkey, to hurry him
up, and when he saw the cat he said, "Get out
of my way, cat; I'm in a hurry and my donkey
might tread on you."
"Donkey, indeed!" said the cat, "much I
care for a donkey! I have eaten five hundred
cakes, I've eaten my friend the parrot, I've
eaten an old woman,--what's to hinder my
eating a miserable man and a donkey?"
And slip! slop! gobble! down went the old
man and the donkey.
Then the cat walked on down the road,
jauntily, like this. After a little, he met a
procession, coming that way. The king was
at the head, walking proudly with his newly
married bride, and behind him were his soldiers,
marching, and behind them were ever and ever
so many elephants, walking two by two. The
king felt very kind to everybody, because he
had just been married, and he said to the cat,
"Get out of my way, pussy, get out of my way,
--my elephants might hurt you."
"Hurt me!" said the cat, shaking his fat
sides. "Ho, ho! I've eaten five hundred cakes,
I've eaten my friend the parrot, I've eaten an
old woman, I've eaten a man and a donkey;
what's to hinder my eating a beggarly king?"
And slip! slop! gobble! down went the
king; down went the queen; down went the
soldiers,--and down went all the elephants!
Then the cat went on, more slowly; he had
really had enough to eat, now. But a little
farther on he met two land-crabs, scuttling
along in the dust. "Get out of our way,
pussy," they squeaked.
"Ho, ho ho!" cried the cat in a terrible
voice. "I've eaten five hundred cakes, I've
eaten my friend the parrot, I've eaten an old
woman, a man with a donkey, a king, a queen,
his men-at-arms, and all his elephants; and
now I'll eat you too."
And slip! slop! gobble! down went the two
land-crabs.
When the land-crabs got down inside, they
began to look around. It was very dark, but
they could see the poor king sitting in a corner
with his bride on his arm; she had fainted.
Near them were the men-at-arms, treading on
one another's toes, and the elephants, still
trying to form in twos,--but they couldn't,
because there was not room. In the opposite
corner sat the old woman, and near her stood
the man and his donkey. But in the other
corner was a great pile of cakes, and by them
perched the parrot, his feathers all drooping.
Let's get to work!" said the land-crabs.
And, snip, snap, they began to make a little
hole in the side, with their sharp claws. Snip,
snap, snip, snap,--till it was big enough to get
through. Then out they scuttled.
Then out walked the king, carrying his bride;
out marched the men-at-arms; out tramped the
elephants, two by two; out came the old man,
beating his donkey; out walked the old woman,
scolding the cat; and last of all, out hopped the
parrot, holding a cake in each claw. (you
remember, two cakes were all he wanted?)
But the poor cat had to spend the whole day
sewing up the hole in his coat!
THE RAT PRINCESS[1]
[1] Adapted from Frank Rinder's Old World Japan. In
telling this story the voice should be changed for the Sun
Cloud, Wind, and Wall, as is always done in the old story of
The Three Bears.
Once upon a time, there was a Rat Princess,
who lived with her father, the Rat King, and
her mother, the Rat Queen, in a ricefield in
far away Japan. The Rat Princess was so
pretty that her father and mother were quite
foolishly proud of her, and thought no one good
enough to play with her. When she grew up,
they would not let any of the rat princes come
to visit her, and they decided at last that no
one should marry her till they had found the
most powerful person in the whole world; no
one else was good enough. And the Father Rat
started out to find the most powerful person
in the whole world. The wisest and oldest rat
in the ricefield said that the Sun must be the
most powerful person, because he made the rice
grow and ripen; so the Rat King went to find
the Sun. He climbed up the highest mountain,
ran up the path of a rainbow, and travelled
and travelled across the sky till he came to
the Sun's house.
"What do you want, little brother?" the Sun
said, when he saw him.
"I come," said the Rat King, very importantly,
"to offer you the hand of my daughter, the
princess, because you are the most powerful
person in the world; no one else is good
enough."
"Ha, ha!" laughed the jolly round Sun, and
winked with his eye. "You are very kind,
little brother, but if that is the case the princess
is not for me; the Cloud is more powerful than
I am; when he passes over me I cannot shine."
"Oh, indeed," said the Rat King, "then
you are not my man at all"; and he left the
Sun without more words. The Sun laughed
and winked to himself. And the Rat King
travelled and travelled across the sky till he
came to the Cloud's house.
"What do you want, little brother?" sighed
the Cloud when he saw him.
"I come to offer you the hand of my
daughter, the princess," said the Rat King,
"because you are the most powerful person in
the world; the Sun said so, and no one else
is good enough."
The Cloud sighed again. "I am not the
most powerful person," he said; "the Wind
is stronger than I,--when he blows, I have to
go wherever he sends me."
"Then you are not the person for my
daughter," said the Rat King proudly; and
he started at once to find the Wind. He
travelled and travelled across the sky, till he
came at last to the Wind's house, at the very
edge of the world.
When the Wind saw him coming he laughed
a big, gusty laugh, "Ho, ho!" and asked him
what he wanted; and when the Rat King told
him that he had come to offer him the Rat
Princess's hand because he was the most powerful
person in the world, the Wind shouted a
great gusty shout, and said, "No, no, I am
not the strongest; the Wall that man has
made is stronger than I; I cannot make him
move, with all my blowing; go to the Wall,
little brother!"
And the Rat King climbed down the sky-
path again, and travelled and travelled across
the earth till he came to the Wall. It was
quite near his own ricefield.
"What do you want, little brother?"
grumbled the Wall when he saw him.
"I come to offer you the hand of the
princess, my daughter, because you are the most
powerful person in the world, and no one else
is good enough."
"Ugh, ugh," grumbled the Wall, "I am not
the strongest; the big grey Rat who lives in
the cellar is stronger than I. When he gnaws
and gnaws at me I crumble and crumble, and
at last I fall; go to the Rat, little brother."
And so, after going all over the world to
find the strongest person, the Rat King had
to marry his daughter to a rat, after all; but
the princess was very glad of it, for she wanted
to marry the grey Rat, all the time.
THE FROG AND THE OX
Once a little Frog sat by a big Frog, by the
side of a pool. "Oh, father," said he, "I
have just seen the biggest animal in the world;
it was as big as a mountain, and it had horns
on its head, and it had hoofs divided in two."
"Pooh, child," said the old Frog, "that was
only Farmer White's Ox. He is not so very
big. I could easily make myself as big as he."
And he blew, and he blew, and he blew, and
swelled himself out.
"Was he as big as that?" he asked the
little Frog.
"Oh, much bigger," said the little Frog.
The old Frog blew, and blew, and blew again,
and swelled himself out, more than ever.
"Was he bigger than that?" he said.
"Much, much bigger," said the little Frog.
"I can make myself as big," said the old
Frog. And once more he blew, and blew, and
blew, and swelled himself out,--and he burst!
Self-conceit leads to self-destruction.
THE FIRE-BRINGER[1]
[1] Adapted from The Basket Woman, by Mary Austin.
This is the Indian story of how fire was
brought to the tribes. It was long, long ago,
when men and beasts talked together with
understanding, and the grey Coyote was friend
and counsellor of man.
There was a Boy of the tribe who was swift
of foot and keen of eye, and he and the Coyote
ranged the wood together. They saw the men
catching fish in the creeks with their hands,
and the women digging roots with sharp stones.
This was in summer. But when winter came
on, they saw the people running naked in the
snow, or huddled in caves of the rocks, and
most miserable. The Boy noticed this, and was
very unhappy for the misery of his people.
"I do not feel it," said the Coyote.
"You have a coat of good fur," said the
Boy, "and my people have not."
"Come to the hunt," said the Coyote.
"I will hunt no more, till I have found a
way to help my people against the cold," said
the Boy. "Help me, O Counsellor!"
Then the Coyote ran away, and came back
after a long time; he said he had found a
way, but it was a hard way.
"No way is too hard," said the Boy. So the
Coyote told him that they must go to the Burning
Mountain and bring fire to the people.
"What is fire?" said the Boy. And the
Coyote told him that fire was red like a flower,
yet not a flower; swift to run in the grass and
to destroy, like a beast, yet no beast; fierce
and hurtful, yet a good servant to keep one
warm, if kept among stones and fed with small
sticks.
"We will get this fire," said the Boy.
First the Boy had to persuade the people to
give him one hundred swift runners. Then he
and they and the Coyote started at a good pace
for the far away Burning Mountain. At the
end of the first day's trail they left the weakest
of the runners, to wait; at the end of the second,
the next stronger; at the end of the third, the
next; and so for each of the hundred days of
the journey; and the Boy was the strongest
runner, and went to the last trail with the
Counsellor. High mountains they crossed, and
great plains, and giant woods, and at last they
came to the Big Water, quaking along the sand
at the foot of the Burning Mountain.
It stood up in a high peaked cone, and smoke
rolled out from it endlessly along the sky. At
night, the Fire Spirits danced, and the glare
reddened the Big Water far out.
There the Counsellor said to the Boy, "Stay
thou here till I bring thee a brand from the
burning; be ready and right for running, for I
shall be far spent when I come again, and the
Fire Spirits will pursue me."
Then he went up to the mountain; and the
Fire Spirits only laughed when they saw him,
for he looked so slinking, inconsiderable, and
mean, that none of them thought harm from
him. And in the night, when they were at
their dance about the mountain, the Coyote
stole the fire, and ran with it down the slope of
the burning mountain. When the Fire Spirits
saw what he had done they streamed out after
him, red and angry, with a humming sound like
a swarm of bees. But the Coyote was still
ahead; the sparks of the brand streamed out
along his flanks, as he carried it in his mouth;
and he stretched his body to the trail.
The Boy saw him coming, like a failing star
against the mountain; he heard the singing
sound of the Fire Spirits close behind, and the
labouring breath of the Counsellor. And when
the good beast panted down beside him, the
Boy caught the brand from his jaws and was off,
like an arrow from a bent bow. Out he shot on
the homeward path, and the Fire Spirits snapped
and sang behind him. But fast as they pursued
he fled faster, till he saw the next runner standing
in his place, his body bent for the running.
To him he passed it, and it was off and away,
with the Fire Spirits raging in chase.
So it passed from hand to hand, and the Fire
Spirits tore after it through the scrub, till they
came to the mountains of the snows; these they
could not pass. Then the dark, sleek runners
with the backward streaming brand bore it forward,
shining starlike in the night, glowing red
in sultry noons, violet pale in twilight glooms,
until they came in safety to their own land.
And there they kept it among stones and fed
it with small sticks, as the Counsellor advised;
and it kept the people warm.
Ever after the Boy was called the Fire-Bringer;
and ever after the Coyote bore the sign of the
bringing, for the fur along his flanks was singed
and yellow from the flames that streamed backward
from the brand.
THE BURNING OF THE RICEFIELDS[1]
[1] Adapted from Gleanings in Buddha-Fields, by Lafeadio
Hearn. (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co, Ltd. 5s. net.)
Once there was a good old man who lived up
on a mountain, far away in Japan. All round
his little house the mountain was flat, and the
ground was rich; and there were the ricefields
of all the people who lived in the village at the
mountain's foot. Mornings and evenings, the
old man and his little grandson, who lived with
him, used to look far down on the people at
work in the village, and watch the blue sea
which lay all round the land, so close that there
was no room for fields below, only for houses.
The little boy loved the ricefields, dearly, for he
knew that all the good food for all the people
came from them; and he often helped his grandfather
to watch over them.
One day, the grandfather was standing alone,
before his house, looking far down at the people,
and out at the sea, when, suddenly, he saw
something very strange far off where the sea
and sky meet. Something like a great cloud
was rising there, as if the sea were lifting itself
high into the sky. The old man put his hands
to his eyes and looked again, hard as his old
sight could. Then he turned and ran to the
house. "Yone, Yone!" he cried, "bring a
brand from the hearth!"
The little grandson could not imagine what
his grandfather wanted with fire, but he always
obeyed, so he ran quickly and brought the brand.
The old man already had one, and was running
for the ricefields. Yone ran after. But what was
his horror to see his grandfather thrust his burning
brand into the ripe dry rice, where it stood.
"Oh, Grandfather, Grandfather!" screamed
the little boy, "what are you doing?"
"Quick, set fire! thrust your brand in!" said
the grandfather.
Yone thought his dear grandfather had lost
his mind, and he began to sob; but a little
Japanese boy always obeys, so though he sobbed,
he thrust his torch in, and the sharp flame ran
up the dry stalks, red and yellow. In an
instant, the field was ablaze, and thick black
smoke began to pour up, on the mountain side.
It rose like a cloud, black and fierce, and in no
time the people below saw that their precious
ricefields were on fire. Ah, how they ran!
Men, women, and children climbed the mountain,
running as fast as they could to save the
rice; not one soul stayed behind.
And when they came to the mountain top, and
saw the beautiful rice-crop all in flames, beyond
help, they cried bitterly, "Who has done this
thing? How did it happen?"
"I set fire," said the old man, very solemnly;
and the little grandson sobbed, "Grandfather
set fire."
But when they came fiercely round the old
man, with "Why? Why?" he only turned and
pointed to the sea. "Look!" he said.
They all turned and looked. And there,
where the blue sea had lain, so calm, a mighty
wall of water, reaching from earth to sky, was
rolling in. No one could scream, so terrible
was the sight. The wall of water rolled in on
the land, passed quite over the place where the
village had been, and broke, with an awful
sound, on the mountain side. One wave more,
and still one more, came; and then all was
water, as far as they could look, below; the
village where they had been was under the sea.
But the people were all safe. And when they
saw what the old man had done, they honoured
him above all men for the quick wit which had
saved them all from the tidal wave.
THE STORY OF WYLIE[1]
[1] Adapted from Rab and his Friends, by Dr John Brown.
This is a story about a dog,--not the kind of
dog you often see in the street here; not a fat,
wrinkly pugdog, nor a smooth-skinned bulldog,
nor even a big shaggy fellow, but a slim, silky-
haired, sharp-eared little dog, the prettiest thing
you can imagine. Her name was Wylie, and she
lived in Scotland, far up on the hills, and helped
her master take care of his sheep.
You can't think how clever she was! She
watched over the sheep and the little lambs like
a soldier, and never let anything hurt them.
She drove them out to pasture when it was
time, and brought them safely home when it was
time for that. When the silly sheep got frightened
and ran this way and that, hurting themselves
and getting lost, Wylie knew exactly what to
do,--round on one side she would run, barking
and scolding, driving them back; then round
on the other, barking and scolding, driving them
back, till they were all bunched together in front
of the right gate. Then she drove them through
as neatly as any person. She loved her work,
and was a wonderfully fine sheepdog.
At last her master grew too old to stay alone
on the hills, and so he went away to live. Before
he went, he gave Wylie to two kind young men
who lived in the nearest town; he knew they
would be good to her. They grew very fond of
her, and so did their old grandmother and the
little children: she was so gentle and handsome
and well behaved.
So now Wylie lived in the city where there
were no sheep farms, only streets and houses,
and she did not have to do any work at all,--
she was just a pet dog. She seemed very happy
and she was always good.
But after a while, the family noticed something
odd, something very strange indeed, about their
pet. Every single Tuesday night, about nine
o'clock, Wylie DISAPPEARED. They would look
for her, call her,--no, she was gone. And she
would be gone all night. But every Wednesday
morning, there she was at the door, waiting to
be let in. Her silky coat was all sweaty and
muddy and her feet heavy with weariness, but
her bright eyes looked up at her masters as
if she were trying to explain where she had
been.
Week after week the same thing happened.
Nobody could imagine where Wylie went every
Tuesday night. They tried to follow her to find
out, but she always slipped away; they tried to
shut her in, but she always found a way out.
It grew to be a real mystery. Where in the
world did Wylie go?
You never could guess, so I am going to tell
you.
In the city near the town where the kind
young men lived was a big market like (naming
one in the neighbourhood). Every sort of thing
was sold there, even live cows and sheep and
hens. On Tuesday nights, the farmers used to
come down from the hills with their sheep to sell,
and drive them through the city streets into the
pens, ready to sell on Wednesday morning; that
was the day they sold them.
The sheep weren't used to the city noises and
sights, and they always grew afraid and wild,
and gave the farmers and the sheepdogs a great
deal of trouble. They broke away and ran about,
in everybody's way.
But just as the trouble was worst, about
sunrise, the farmers would see a little silky, sharp-
eared dog come trotting all alone down the road,
into the midst of them.
And then!
In and out the little dog ran like the wind,
round and about, always in the right place,
driving--coaxing--pushing--making the sheep
mind like a good school-teacher, and never
frightening them, till they were all safely in!
All the other dogs together could not do as
much as the little strange dog. She was a perfect
wonder. And no one knew whose dog she
was or where she came from. The farmers grew
to watch for her, every week, and they called
her "the wee fell yin" which is Scots for "the
little terror"; they used to say when they saw
her coming, "There's the wee fell yin! Now
we'll get them in."
Every farmer would have liked to keep her,
but she let no one catch her. As soon as her
work was done she was off and away like a fairy
dog, no one knew where. Week after week this
happened, and nobody knew who the little
strange dog was.
But one day Wylie went to walk with her two
masters, and they happened to meet some sheep
farmers. The sheep farmers stopped short and
stared at Wylie, and then they cried out, "Why,
THAT'S THE DOG! That's the wee fell yin!" And
so it was. The little strange dog who helped
with the sheep was Wylie.
Her masters, of course, didn't know what the
farmers meant, till they were told all about what
I have been telling you. But when they heard
about the pretty strange dog who came to
market all alone, they knew at last where Wylie
went, every Tuesday night. And they loved
her better than ever
Wasn't it wise of the dear little dog to go and
work for other people when her own work was
taken away? I fancy she knew that the best
people and the best dogs always work hard at
something. Any way she did that same thing
as long as she lived, and she was always just as
gentle, and silky-haired, and loving as at first.
LITTLE DAYLIGHT[1]
[1] Adapted from At the Back of the North Wind, by George
Macdonald.
Once there was a beautiful palace, which had
a great wood at one side. The king and his
courtiers hunted in the wood near the palace,
and there it was kept open, free from underbrush.
But farther away it grew wilder and wilder, till
at last it was so thick that nobody knew what
was there. It was a very great wood indeed.
In the wood lived eight fairies. Seven of
them were good fairies, who had lived there
always; the eighth was a bad fairy, who had
just come. And the worst of it was that nobody
but the other fairies knew she WAS a fairy;
people thought she was just an ugly old witch.
The good fairies lived in the dearest little houses!
One lived in a hollow silver birch, one in a little
moss cottage, and so on. But the bad fairy lived
in a horrid mud house in the middle of a dark
swamp.
Now when the first baby was born to the king
and queen, her father and mother decided to
name her "Daylight," because she was so bright
and sweet. And of course they had a christening
party. And of COURSE they invited the fairies,
because the good fairies had always been at
the christening party when a princess was born
in the palace, and everybody knew that they
brought good gifts.
But, alas, no one knew about the swamp fairy,
and she was not invited,--which really pleased
her, because it gave her an excuse for doing
something mean.
The good fairies came to the christening party,
and, one after another, five of them gave little
Daylight good gifts. The other two stood among
the guests, so that no one noticed them. The
swamp fairy thought there were no more of them;
so she stepped forward, just as the archbishop
was handing the baby back to the lady-in-waiting.
"I am just a little deaf," she said, mumbling
a laugh with her toothless gums. "Will your
reverence tell me the baby's name again?"
"Certainly, my good woman," said the bishop;
"the infant is little Daylight."
"And little Daylight it shall be, forsooth,"
cried the bad fairy. "I decree that she shall
sleep all day." Then she laughed a horrid
shrieking laugh, "He, he, hi, hi!"
Everyone looked at everyone else in despair,
but out stepped the sixth good fairy, who by
arrangement with her sisters had remained in
the background to undo what she could of any
evil that the swamp fairy might decree.
"Then at least she shall wake all night," she
said, sadly.
"Ah!" screamed the swamp fairy, "you spoke
before I had finished, which is against the law,
and gives me another chance." All the fairies
started at once to say, "I beg your pardon!"
But the bad fairy said, "I had only laughed `he,
he!' and `hi, hi!' I had still `ho, ho!' and `hu,
hu!' to laugh."
The fairies could not gainsay this, and the
bad fairy had her other chance. She said,--
"Since she is to wake all night, I decree that
she shall wax and wane with the moon! Ho,
ho, hu, hu!"
Out stepped the seventh good fairy. "Until
a prince shall kiss her without knowing who
she is," she said, quickly.
The swamp fairy had been prepared for the
trick of keeping back one good fairy, but she
had not suspected it of two, and she could not
say a word, for she had laughed "ho, ho!" and
"hu, hu!"
The poor king and queen looked sad enough.
"We don't know what you mean," they said to
the good fairy who had spoken last. But the
good fairy smiled. "The meaning of the thing
will come with the thing," she said.
That was the end of the party, but it was
only the beginning of the trouble. Can you
imagine what a queer household it would be,
where the baby laughed and crowed all night,
and slept all day? Little Daylight was as
merry and bright all night as any baby in the
world, but with the first sign of dawn she fell
asleep, and slept like a little dormouse till dark.
Nothing could waken her while day lasted.
Still, the royal family got used to this; but the
rest of the bad fairy's gift was a great deal
worse,--that about waxing and waning with
the moon. You know how the moon grows
bigger and brighter each night, from the time
it is a curly silver thread low in the sky till it
is round and golden, flooding the whole sky
with light? That is the waxing moon. Then,
you know, it wanes; it grows smaller and
paler again, night by night, till at last it
disappears for a while, altogether. Well, poor
little Daylight waxed and waned with it. She
was the rosiest, plumpest, merriest baby in the
world when the moon was at the full; but as
it began to wane her little cheeks grew paler,
her tiny hands thinner, with every night, till
she lay in her cradle like a shadow-baby, without
sound or motion. At first they thought
she was dead, when the moon disappeared, but
after some months they got used to this too,
and only waited eagerly for the new moon, to
see her revive. When it shone again, faint and
silver, on the horizon, the baby stirred weakly,
and then they fed her gently; each night she
grew a little better, and when the moon was
near the full again, she was again a lively, rosy,
lovely child.
So it went on till she grew up. She grew
to be the most beautiful maiden the moon ever
shone on, and everyone loved her so much, for
her sweet ways and her merry heart, that someone
was always planning to stay up at night, to
be near her. But she did not like to be watched,
especially when she felt the bad time of waning
coming on; so her ladies-in-waiting had to be
very careful. When the moon waned she became
shrunken and pale and bent, like an old,
old woman, worn out with sorrow. Only her
golden hair and her blue eyes remained
unchanged, and this gave her a terribly strange
look. At last, as the moon disappeared, she
faded away to a little, bowed, old creature,
asleep and helpless.
No wonder she liked best to be alone! She
got in the way of wandering by herself in the
beautiful wood, playing in the moonlight when
she was well, stealing away in the shadows
when she was fading with the moon. Her
father had a lovely little house of roses and
vines built for her, there. It stood at the edge
of a most beautiful open glade, inside the wood,
where the moon shone best. There the princess
lived with her ladies. And there she danced
when the moon was full. But when the moon
waned, her ladies often lost her altogether, so
far did she wander; and sometimes they found
her sleeping under a great tree, and brought her
home in their arms.
When the princess was about seventeen years
old, there was a rebellion in a kingdom not far
from her father's. Wicked nobles murdered
the king of the country and stole his throne,
and would have murdered the young prince,
too, if he had not escaped, dressed in peasant's
clothes.
Dressed in his poor rags, the prince wandered
about a long time, till one day he got into a
great wood, and lost his way. It was the wood
where the Princess Daylight lived, but of course
he did not know anything about that nor about
her. He wandered till night, and then he came
to a queer little house. One of the good fairies
lived there, and the minute she saw him she
knew all about everything; but to him she
looked only like a kind old woman. She gave
him a good supper and a bed for the night, and
told him to come back to her if he found no
better place for the next night. But the prince
said he must get out of the wood at once; so in
the morning he took leave of the fairy.
All day long he walked, and walked; but at
nightfall he had not found his way out of the
wood, so he lay down to rest till the moon
should rise and light his path.
When he woke the moon was glorious; it
was three days from the full, and bright as
silver. By its light he saw what he thought
to be the edge of the wood, and he hastened
toward it. But when he came to it, it was
only an open space, surrounded with trees. It
was so very lovely, in the white moonlight, that
the prince stood a minute to look. And as he
looked, something white moved out of the trees
on the far side of the open space. It was
something slim and white, that swayed in the dim
light like a young birch.
"It must be a moon fairy," thought the
prince; and he stepped into the shadow.
The moon fairy came nearer and nearer,
dancing and swaying in the moonlight. And
as she came, she began to sing a soft, gay little
song.
But when she was quite close, the prince saw
that she was not a fairy after all, but a real
human maiden,--the loveliest maiden he had
ever seen. Her hair was like yellow corn, and
her smile made all the place merry. Her white
gown fluttered as she danced, and her little
song sounded like a bird note.
The prince watched her till she danced out
of sight, and then until she once more came
toward him; and she seemed so like a moon-
beam herself, as she lifted her face to the sky,
that he was almost afraid to breathe. He had
never seen anything so lovely. By the time
she had danced twice round the circle, he could
think of nothing in the world except the hope
of finding out who she was, and staying near her.
But while he was waiting for her to appear
the third time, his weariness overcame him, and
he fell asleep. And when he awoke, it was
broad day, and the beautiful maiden had
vanished.
He hunted about, hoping to find where she
lived, and on the other side of the glade he
came upon a lovely little house, covered with
moss and climbing roses. He thought she
must live there, so he went round to the
kitchen door and asked the kind cook for a
drink of water, and while he was drinking it
he asked who lived there. She told him it was
the house of the Princess Daylight, but she told
him nothing else about her, because she was not
allowed to talk about her mistress. But she
gave him a very good meal and told him other
things.
He did not go back to the little old woman
who had been so kind to him first, but
wandered all day in the wood, waiting for the
moontime. Again he waited at the edge of
the dell, and when the white moon was high
in the heavens, once more he saw the glimmering
in the distance, and once more the lovely
maiden floated toward him. He knew her
name was the Princess Daylight, but this time
she seemed to him much lovelier than before.
She was all in blue like the blue of the sky
in summer. (She really was more lovely, you
know, because the moon was almost at the
full.) All night he watched her, quite forgetting
that he ought not to be doing it, till she
disappeared on the opposite side of the glade.
Then, very tired, he found his way to the little
old woman's house, had breakfast with her, and
fell fast asleep in the bed she gave him.
The fairy knew well enough by his face that
he had seen Daylight, and when he woke up in
the evening and started off again she gave him
a strange little flask and told him to use it if
ever he needed it.
This night the princess did not appear in
the dell until midnight, at the very full of the
moon. But when she came, she was so lovely
that she took the prince's breath away. Just
think!--she was dressed in a gown that looked
as if it were made of fireflies' wings, em-
broidered in gold. She danced around and
around, singing, swaying, and flitting like a
beam of sunlight, till the prince grew quite
dazzled.
But while he had been watching her, he had
not noticed that the sky was growing dark
and the wind was rising. Suddenly there was
a clap of thunder. The princess danced on.
But another clap came louder, and then a
sudden great flash of lightning that lit up the
sky from end to end. The prince couldn't help
shutting his eyes, but he opened them quickly
to see if Daylight was hurt. Alas, she was
lying on the ground. The prince ran to her,
but she was already up again.
"Who are you?" she said.
"I thought," stammered the prince, "you
might be hurt."
"There is nothing the matter. Go away."
The prince went sadly.
"Come back," said the princess. The prince
came. "I like you, you do as you are told.
Are you good?"
"Not so good as I should like to be," said
the prince.
"Then go and grow better," said the princess.
The prince went, more sadly.
"Come back," said the princess. The prince
came. "I think you must be a prince," she
said.
"Why?" said the prince.
"Because you do as you are told, and you
tell the truth. Will you tell me what the sun
looks like?"
"Why, everybody knows that," said the
prince.
"I am different from everybody," said the
princess,--"I don't know."
"But," said the prince, "do you not look
when you wake up in the morning?"
"That's just it," said the princess, "I never
do wake up in the morning. I never can wake
up until----" Then the princess remembered
that she was talking to a prince, and putting
her hands over her face she walked swiftly
away. The prince followed her, but she turned
and put up her hand to tell him not to. And
like the gentleman prince that he was, he
obeyed her at once.
Now all this time, the wicked swamp fairy
had not known a word about what was going
on. But now she found out, and she was
furious, for fear that little Daylight should be
delivered from her spell. So she cast her
spells to keep the prince from finding Daylight
again. Night after night the poor prince
wandered and wandered, and never could find
the little dell. And when daytime came, of
course, there was no princess to be seen.
Finally, at the time that the moon was almost
gone, the swamp fairy stopped her spells,
because she knew that by this time Daylight
would be so changed and ugly that the prince
would never know her if he did see her. She
said to herself with a wicked laugh:--
"No fear of his wanting to kiss her now!"
That night the prince did find the dell, but
no princess came. A little after midnight he
passed near the lovely little house where she
lived, and there he overheard her waiting-
women talking about her. They seemed in
great distress. They were saying that the
princess had wandered into the woods and
was lost. The prince didn't know, of course,
what it meant, but he did understand that the
princess was lost somewhere, and he started
off to find her. After he had gone a long
way without finding her, he came to a big
old tree, and there he thought he would light
a fire to show her the way if she should happen
to see it.
As the blaze flared up, he suddenly saw a
little black heap on the other side of the tree.
Somebody was lying there. He ran to the
spot, his heart beating with hope. But when
he lifted the cloak which was huddled about
the form, he saw at once that it was not
Daylight. A pinched, withered, white, little old
woman's face shone out at him. The hood was
drawn close down over her forehead, the eyes
were closed, and as the prince lifted the cloak,
the old woman's lips moaned faintly.
"Oh, poor mother," said the prince, "what
is the matter?" The old woman only moaned
again. The prince lifted her and carried her
over to the warm fire, and rubbed her hands,
trying to find out what was the matter. But
she only moaned, and her face was so terribly
strange and white that the prince's tender heart
ached for her. Remembering his little flask,
he poured some of his liquid between her lips,
and then he thought the best thing he could do
was to carry her to the princess's house, where
she could be taken care of.
As he lifted the poor little form in his arms,
two great tears stole out from the old woman's
closed eyes and ran down her wrinkled cheeks.
"Oh, poor, poor mother," said the prince
pityingly; and he stooped and kissed her
withered lips.
As he walked through the forest with the
old woman in his arms, it seemed to him that
she grew heavier and heavier; he could hardly
carry her at all; and then she stirred, and at
last he was obliged to set her down, to rest.
He meant to lay her on the ground. But the
old woman stood upon her feet.
And then the hood fell back from her face.
As she looked up at the prince, the first, long,
yellow ray of the rising sun struck full upon
her,--and it was the Princess Daylight! Her
hair was golden as the sun itself, and her eyes
as blue as the flower that grows in the corn.
The prince fell on his knees before her. But
she gave him her hand and made him rise.
"You kissed me when I was an old woman,"
said the princess, "I'll kiss you now that I am
a young princess." And she did.
And then she turned her face toward the
dawn.
"Dear Prince," she said, "is that the sun?"
THE SAILOR MAN[1]
[1] From The Golden Windows, by Laura E. Richards.
(H. R. Allenson Ltd. 2s. 6d. net.)
Once upon a time, two children came to the
house of a sailor man, who lived beside the
salt sea; and they found the sailor man sitting
in his doorway knotting ropes.
"How do you do?" asked the sailor man.
"We are very well, thank you," said the
children, who had learned manners, "and we
hope you are the same. We heard that you
had a boat, and we thought that perhaps you
would take us out in her, and teach us how to
sail, for that is what we most wish to know."
"All in good time," said the sailor man. "I
am busy now, but by-and-by, when my work
is done, I may perhaps take one of you if you
are ready to learn. Meantime here are some
ropes that need knotting; you might be doing
that, since it has to be done." And he showed
them how the knots should be tied, and went
away and left them.
When he was gone the first child ran to the
window and looked out.
"There is the sea," he said. "The waves
come up on the beach, almost to the door of
the house. They run up all white, like prancing
horses, and then they go dragging back. Come
and look!"
"I cannot," said the second child. "I am
tying a knot."
"Oh!" cried the first child, "I see the boat.
She is dancing like a lady at a ball; I never
saw such a beauty. Come and look!"
"I cannot," said the second child. "I am
tying a knot."
"I shall have a delightful sail in that boat,"
said the first child. "I expect that the sailor
man will take me, because I am the eldest and
I know more about it. There was no need of
my watching when he showed you the knots,
because I knew how already."
Just then the sailor man came in.
"Well," he said, "my work is over. What
have you been doing in the meantime?"
"I have been looking at the boat," said the
first child. "What a beauty she is! I shall
have the best time in her that ever I had in
my life."
"I have been tying knots," said the second
child.
"Come, then," said the sailor man, and he
held out his hand to the second child. "I will
take you out in the boat, and teach you to sail
her."
"But I am the eldest," cried the first child,
"and I know a great deal more than she does."
"That may be," said the sailor man; "but
a person must learn to tie a knot before he can
learn to sail a boat."
"But I have learned to tie a knot," cried the
child. "I know all about it!"
"How can I tell that?" asked the sailor man.
THE STORY OF JAIRUS'S DAUGHTER[1]
[1] This should usually be prefaced by a brief statement
of Jesus habit of healing and comforting all with whom He
came in close contact. The exact form of the preface must
depend on how much of His life has already been given in
stories.
Once, while Jesus was journeying about, He
passed near a town where a man named Jairus
lived. This man was a ruler in the synagogue,
and he had just one little daughter about twelve
years of age. At the time that Jesus was there
the little daughter was very sick, and at last
she lay a-dying.
Her father heard that there was a wonderful
man near the town, who was healing sick people
whom no one else could help, and in his despair
he ran out into the streets to search for Him.
He found Jesus walking in the midst of a
crowd of people, and when he saw Him he fell
down at Jesus feet and besought Him to come
into his house, to heal his daughter. And
Jesus said, Yes, he would go with him. But
there were so many people begging to be
healed, and so many looking to see what
happened, that the crowd thronged them, and
kept them from moving fast. And before they
reached the house one of the man's servants
came to meet them, and said, "Thy daughter
is dead; trouble not the Master to come
farther."
But instantly Jesus turned to the father and
said, "Fear not; only believe, and she shall be
made whole." And He went on with Jairus, to
the house.
When they came to the house, they heard the
sound of weeping and lamentation; the household
was mourning for the little daughter, who
was dead. Jesus sent all the strangers away
from the door, and only three of His disciples
and the father and mother of the child went in
with Him. And when He was within, He said
to the mourning people, "Weep not; she is
not dead; she sleepeth."
When He had passed, they laughed Him to
scorn, for they knew that she was dead.
Then Jesus left them all, and went alone
into the chamber where the little daughter lay.
And when He was there, alone, He went up to
the bed where she was, and bent over her, and
took her by the hand. And He said, "Maiden,
arise."
And her spirit came unto her again! And
she lived, and grew up in her father's house.
ESPECIALLY FOR CLASSES IV. AND V.
ARTHUR AND THE SWORD[1]
[1] Adapted from Sir Thomas Malory.
Once there was a great king in Britain named
Uther, and when he died the other kings and
princes disputed over the kingdom, each wanting
it for himself. But King Uther had a son
named Arthur, the rightful heir to the throne,
of whom no one knew, for he had been taken
away secretly while he was still a baby by a
wise old man called Merlin, who had him
brought up in the family of a certain Sir Ector,
for fear of the malice of wicked knights. Even
the boy himself thought Sir Ector was his
father, and he loved Sir Ector's son, Sir Kay,
with the love of a brother.
When the kings and princes could not be
kept in check any longer, and something had
to be done to determine who was to be king,
Merlin made the Archbishop of Canterbury send
for them all to come to London. It was
Christmas time, and in the great cathedral a
solemn service was held, and prayer was made
that some sign should be given, to show who
was the rightful king. When the service was
over, there appeared a strange stone in the
churchyard, against the high altar. It was a
great white stone, like marble, with something
sunk in it that looked like a steel anvil; and
in the anvil was driven a great glistening sword.
The sword had letters of gold written on it,
which read: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of
this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of
all England."
All wondered at the strange sword and its
strange writing; and when the archbishop himself
came out and gave permission, many of the
knights tried to pull the sword from the stone,
hoping to be king. But no one could move it
a hair's breadth.
"He is not here," said the archbishop, "that
shall achieve the sword; but doubt not, God
will make him known."
Then they set a guard of ten knights to keep
the stone, and the archbishop appointed a day
when all should come together to try at the
stone,--kings from far and near. In the meantime,
splendid jousts were held, outside London,
and both knights and commons were bidden.
Sir Ector came up to the jousts, with others,
and with him rode Kay and Arthur. Kay
had been made a knight at Allhallowmas, and
when he found there was to be so fine a joust
he wanted a sword, to join it. But he had left
his sword behind, where his father and he had
slept the night before. So he asked young
Arthur to ride for it.
"I will well," said Arthur, and rode back for
it. But when he came to the castle, the lady
and all her household were at the jousting, and
there was none to let him in.
Thereat Arthur said to himself, "My brother
Sir Kay shall not be without a sword this day."
And he remembered the sword he had seen in
the churchyard. "I will to the churchyard,"
he said, "and take that sword with me." So he
rode into the churchyard, tied his horse to the
stile, and went up to the stone. The guards
were away to the tourney, and the sword was
there, alone.
Going up to the stone, young Arthur took the
great sword by the hilt, and lightly and fiercely
he drew it out of the anvil.
Then he rode straight to Sir Kay, and gave it
to him.
Sir Kay knew instantly that it was the sword
of the stone, and he rode off at once to his father
and said, "Sir, lo, here is the sword of the
stone; I must be king of the land." But Sir
Ector asked him where he got the sword. And
when Sir Kay said, "From my brother," he
asked Arthur how he got it. When Arthur
told him, Sir Ector bowed his head before him.
"Now I understand ye must be king of this
land," he said to Arthur.
"Wherefore I?" said Arthur.
"For God will have it so," said Ector;
"never man should have drawn out this sword
but he that shall be rightwise king of this land.
Now let me see whether ye can put the sword
as it was in the stone, and pull it out again."
Straightway Arthur put the sword back.
Then Sir Ector tried to pull it out, and after
him Sir Kay; but neither could stir it. Then
Arthur pulled it out. Thereupon, Sir Ector
and Sir Kay kneeled upon the ground before him.
"Alas," said Arthur, "mine own dear father
and brother, why kneel ye to me?"
Sir Ector told him, then, all about his royal
birth, and how he had been taken privily away
by Merlin. But when Arthur found Sir Ector
was not truly his father, he was so sad at heart
that he cared not greatly to be king. And he
begged his father and brother to love him still.
Sir Ector asked that Sir Kay might be seneschal
when Arthur was king. Arthur promised with
all his heart.
Then they went to the archbishop and told
him that the sword had found its master. The
archbishop appointed a day for the trial to be
made in the sight of all men, and on that day
the princes and knights came together, and each
tried to draw out the sword, as before. But as
before, none could so much as stir it.
Then came Arthur, and pulled it easily from
its place.
The knights and kings were terribly angry
that a boy from nowhere in particular had beaten
them, and they refused to acknowledge him king.
They appointed another day, for another great
trial.
Three times they did this, and every time the
same thing happened.
At last, at the feast of Pentecost, Arthur
again pulled out the sword before all the knights
and the commons. And then the commons
rose up and cried that he should be king, and
that they would slay any who denied him.
So Arthur became king of Britain, and all
gave him allegiance.
TARPEIA
There was once a girl named Tarpeia, whose
father was guard of the outer gate of the citadel
of Rome. It was a time of war,--the Sabines
were besieging the city. Their camp was close
outside the city wall.
Tarpeia used to see the Sabine soldiers when
she went to draw water from the public well,
for that was outside the gate. And sometimes
she stayed about and let the strange men talk
with her, because she liked to look at their
bright silver ornaments. The Sabine soldiers
wore heavy silver rings and bracelets on their
left arms,--some wore as many as four or five.
The soldiers knew she was the daughter of the
keeper of the citadel, and they saw that she had
greedy eyes for their ornaments. So day by
day they talked with her, and showed her their
silver rings, and tempted her. And at last Tarpeia
made a bargain, to betray her city to them.
She said she would unlock the great gate and
let them in, IF THEY WOULD GIVE HER WHAT THEY WORE
ON THEIR LEFT ARMS.
The night came. When it was perfectly dark
and still, Tarpeia stole from her bed, took the
great key from its place, and silently unlocked
the gate which protected the city. Outside, in
the dark, stood the soldiers of the enemy, waiting.
As she opened the gate, the long shadowy files
pressed forward silently, and the Sabines
entered the citadel.
As the first man came inside, Tarpeia stretched
forth her hand for her price. The soldier lifted
high his left arm. "Take thy reward!" he said,
and as he spoke he hurled upon her that which
he wore upon it. Down upon her head crashed
--not the silver rings of the soldier, but the
great brass shield he carried in battle!
She sank beneath it, to the ground.
"Take thy reward," said the next; and his
shield rang against the first.
"Thy reward," said the next--and the next--
and the next--and the next; every man wore
his shield on his left arm.
So Tarpeia lay buried beneath the reward
she had claimed, and the Sabines marched past
her dead body, into the city she had betrayed.
THE BUCKWHEAT[1]
[1] Adapted from Hans Christian Andersen.
Down by the river were fields of barley and
rye and golden oats. Wheat grew there, too,
and the heaviest and richest ears bent lowest,
in humility. Opposite the corn was a field of
buckwheat, but the buckwheat never bent; it
held its head proud and stiff on the stem.
The wise old willow-tree by the river looked
down on the fields, and thought his thoughts.
One day a dreadful storm came. The field-
flowers folded their leaves together, and bowed
their heads. But the buckwheat stood straight
and proud.
"Bend your head, as we do," called the field-
flowers.
"I have no need to," said the buckwheat.
"Bend your head, as we do!" warned the
golden wheat-ears; "the angel of the storm is
coming; he will strike you down."
"I will not bend my head," said the buckwheat.
Then the old willow-tree spoke: "Close your
flowers and bend your leaves. Do not look at
the lightning when the cloud bursts. Even men
cannot do that; the sight of heaven would strike
them blind. Much less can we who are so
inferior to them!"
"`Inferior,' indeed!" said the buckwheat.
"Now I WILL look!" And he looked straight
up, while the lightning flashed across the sky.
When the dreadful storm had passed, the
flowers and the wheat raised their drooping
heads, clean and refreshed in the pure, sweet
air. The willow-tree shook the gentle drops
from its leaves.
But the buckwheat lay like a weed in the
field, scorched black by the lightning.
THE JUDGMENT OF MIDAS[1]
[1] Adapted from Old Greek Folk-Stories, by Josephine Preston
Peabody. (Harrap & Co. 9d.)
The Greek God Pan, the god of the open air,
was a great musician. He played on a pipe of
reeds. And the sound of his reed-pipe was so
sweet that he grew proud, and believed himself
greater than the chief musician of the gods,
Apollo, the son-god. So he challenged great
Apollo to make better music than he.
Apollo consented to the test, for he wished to
punish Pan's vanity, and they chose the mountain
Tmolus for judge, since no one is so old and
wise as the hills.
When Pan and Apollo came before Tmolus,
to play, their followers came with them, to hear,
and one of those who came with Pan was a
mortal named Midas.
First Pan played; he blew on his reed-pipe,
and out came a tune so wild and yet so coaxing
that the birds hopped from the trees to get near;
the squirrels came running from their holes;
and the very trees swayed as if they wanted to
dance. The fauns laughed aloud for joy as the
melody tickled their furry little ears. And
Midas thought it the sweetest music in the
world.
Then Apollo rose. His hair shook drops of
light from its curls; his robes were like the
edge of the sunset cloud; in his hands he held
a golden lyre. And when he touched the
strings of the lyre, such music stole upon the
air as never god nor mortal heard before. The
wild creatures of the wood crouched still as
stone; the trees kept every leaf from rustling;
earth and air were silent as a dream. To hear
such music cease was like bidding farewell to
father and mother.
When the charm was broken, the hearers
fell at Apollo's feet and proclaimed the victory
his. All but Midas. He alone would not
admit that the music was better than Pan's.
"If thine ears are so dull, mortal," said
Apollo, "they shall take the shape that suits
them." And he touched the ears of Midas.
And straightway the dull ears grew long,
pointed, and furry, and they turned this way
and that. They were the ears of an ass!
For a long time Midas managed to hide
the tell-tale ears from everyone; but at last a
servant discovered the secret. He knew he
must not tell, yet he could not bear not to;
so one day he went into the meadow, scooped
a little hollow in the turf, and whispered the
secret into the earth. Then he covered it up
again, and went away. But, alas, a bed of
reeds sprang up from the spot, and whispered
the secret to the grass. The grass told it to
the tree-tops, the tree-tops to the little birds,
and they cried it all abroad.
And to this day, when the wind sets the
reeds nodding together, they whisper, laughing,
"Midas has the ears of an ass! Oh, hush,
hush!"
WHY THE SEA IS SALT[1]
[1] There are many versions of this tale, in different
collections. This one is the story which grew up in my mind,
about the bare outline related to me by one of Mrs Rutan's
hearers. What the original teller said, I never knew, but
what the listener felt was clear. And in this form I have
told it a great many times.
Once there were two brothers. One was
rich, and one was poor; the rich one was
rather mean. When the Poor Brother used
to come to ask for things it annoyed him, and
finally one day he said, "There, I'll give it to
you this time, but the next time you want
anything, you can go Below for it!"
Presently the Poor Brother did want something,
and he knew it wasn't any use to go to
his brother; he must go Below for it. So he
went, and he went, and he went, till he came
Below.
It was the queerest place! There were red
and yellow fires burning all around, and kettles
of boiling oil hanging over them, and a queer
sort of men standing round, poking the fires.
There was a Chief Man; he had a long curly
tail that curled up behind, and two ugly little
horns just over his ears; and one foot was very
queer indeed. And as soon as anyone came
in the door, these men would catch him up
and put him over one of the fires, and turn
him on a spit. And then the Chief Man, who
was the worst of all, would come and say,
"Eh, how do you feel now? How do you
feel now?" And of course the poor people
screamed and screeched and said, "Let us out!
Let us out!" That was just what the Chief
Man wanted.
When the Poor Brother came in, they picked
him up at once, and put him over one of the
hottest fires, and began to turn him round and
round like the rest; and of course the Chief
Man came up to him and said, "Eh, how do
you feel now? How do you feel now?" But
the Poor Brother did not say, "Let me out!
Let me out!" He said, "Pretty well, thank
you."
The Chief Man grunted and said to the
other men, "Make the fire hotter." But the
next time he asked the Poor Brother how he
felt, the Poor Brother smiled and said. "Much
better now, thank you." The Chief Man did
not like this at all, because, of course, the whole
object in life of the people Below was to make
their victims uncomfortable. So he piled on
more fuel and made the fire hotter still. But
every time he asked the Poor Brother how he
felt, the Poor Brother would say, "Very much
better"; and at last he said, "Perfectly
comfortable, thank you; couldn't be better."
You see when the Poor Brother was on
earth he had never once had money enough
to buy coal enough to keep him warm; so he
liked the heat.
At last the Chief Man could stand it no
longer.
"Oh, look here," he said, "you can go
home."
"Oh no, thank you," said the Poor Brother,
"I like it here."
"You MUST go home," said the Chief Man
"But I won't go home," said the Poor
Brother.
The Chief Man went away and talked with
the other men; but no matter what they did
they could not make the Poor Brother uncomfortable;
so at last the Chief Man came back
and said,--
"What'll you take to go home?"
"What have you got?" said the Poor
Brother.
"Well," said the Chief Man, "if you'll go
home quietly I'll give you the Little Mill that
stands behind my door."
"What's the good of it?" said the Poor
Brother.
"It is the most wonderful mill in the world,"
said the Chief Man. "Anything at all that you
want, you have only to name it, and say, `Grind
this, Little Mill, and grind quickly,' and the
Mill will grind that thing until you say the
magic word, to stop it."
"That sounds nice," said the Poor Brother.
"I'll take it." And he took the Little Mill
under his arm, and went up, and up, and up,
till he came to his own house.
When he was in front of his little old hut, he
put the Little Mill down on the ground and
said to it, "Grind a fine house, Little Mill, and
grind quickly." And the Little Mill ground,
and ground, and ground the finest house that
ever was seen. It had fine big chimneys, and
gable windows, and broad piazzas; and just as
the Little Mill ground the last step of the last
flight of steps, the Poor Brother said the magic
word, and it stopped.
Then he took it round to where the barn was,
and said, "Grind cattle, Little Mill, and grind
quickly." And the Little Mill ground, and
ground, and ground, and out came great fat
cows, and little woolly lambs, and fine little
pigs; and just as the Little Mill ground the
last curl on the tail of the last little pig, the
Poor Brother said the magic word, and it
stopped.
He did the same thing with crops for his
cattle, pretty clothes for his daughters, and
everything else they wanted. At last he had
everything he wanted, and so he stood the
Little Mill behind his door.
All this time the Rich Brother had been
getting more and more jealous, and at last he
came to ask the Poor Brother how he had
grown so rich. The Poor Brother told him all
about it. He said, "It all comes from that
Little Mill behind my door. All I have to do
when I want anything is to name it to the
Little Mill, and say, `Grind that, Little Mill,
and grind quickly,' and the Little Mill will
grind that thing until----"
But the Rich Brother didn't wait to hear any
more. "Will you lend me the Little Mill?" he
said.
"Why, yes," said the Poor Brother, "I will."
So the Rich Brother took the Little Mill
under his arm and started across the fields to
his house. When he got near home he saw the
farm-hands coming in from the fields for their
luncheon. Now, you remember, he was rather
mean. He thought to himself, "It is a waste
of good time for them to come into the house;
they shall have their porridge where they are."
He called all the men to him, and made
them bring their porridge-bowls. Then he set
the Little Mill down on the ground, and said
to it, "Grind oatmeal porridge, Little Mill, and
grind quickly!" The Little Mill ground, and
ground, and ground, and out came delicious
oatmeal porridge. Each man held his bowl
under the spout. When the last bowl was
filled, the porridge ran over on the ground.
"That's enough, Little Mill," said the Rich
Brother. "You may stop, and stop quickly."
But this was not the magic word, and the
Little Mill did not stop. It ground, and ground,
and ground, and the porridge ran all round and
made a little pool. The Rich Brother said,
"No, no, Little Mill, I said, `Stop grinding, and
stop quickly.'" But the Little Mill ground, and
ground, faster than ever; and presently there
was a regular pond of porridge, almost up to
their knees. The Rich Brother said, "Stop
grinding," in every kind of way; he called the
Little Mill names; but nothing did any good.
The Little Mill ground porridge just the same.
At last the men said, "Go and get your brother
to stop the Little Mill, or we shall be drowned
in porridge."
So the Rich Brother started for his brother's
house. He had to swim before he got there,
and the porridge went up his sleeves, and down
his neck, and it was horrid and sticky. His
brother laughed when he heard the story, but
he came with him, and they took a boat and
rowed across the lake of porridge to where the
Little Mill was grinding. And then the Poor
Brother whispered the magic word, and the
Little Mill stopped.
But the porridge was a long time soaking into
the ground, and nothing would ever grow there
afterwards except oatmeal.
The Rich Brother didn't seem to care much
about the Little Mill after this, so the Poor
Brother took it home again and put it behind
the door; and there it stayed a long, long while.
Years afterwards a Sea Captain came there on
a visit. He told such big stories that the Poor
Brother said, "Oh, I daresay you have seen
wonderful things, but I don't believe you ever
saw anything more wonderful than the Little
Mill that stands behind my door."
"What is wonderful about that?" said the
Sea Captain.
"Why," said the Poor Brother, "anything in
the world you want,--you have only to name it
to the Little Mill and say, `Grind that, Little
Mill, and grind quickly,' and it will grind that
thing until----"
The Sea Captain didn't wait to hear another
word. "Will you lend me that Little Mill?"
he said eagerly.
The Poor Brother smiled a little, but he said,
"Yes," and the Sea Captain took the Little Mill
under his arm, and went on board his ship and
sailed away.
They had head-winds and storms, and they
were so long at sea that some of the food gave
out. Worst of all, the salt gave out. It was
dreadful, being without salt. But the Captain
happened to remember the Little Mill.
"Bring up the salt box!" he said to the cook.
"We will have salt enough."
He set the Little Mill on deck, put the salt
box under the spout, and said,--
"Grind salt, Little Mill, and grind quickly!"
And the Little Mill ground beautiful, white,
powdery salt. When they had enough, the
Captain said, "Now you may stop, Little Mill,
and stop quickly." The Little Mill kept on
grinding; and the salt began to pile up in little
heaps on the deck. "I said, `Stop,'" said the
Captain. But the Little Mill ground, and ground,
faster than ever, and the salt was soon thick on
the deck like snow. The Captain called the
Little Mill names and told it to stop, in every
language he knew, but the Little Mill went on
grinding. The salt covered all the decks and
poured down into the hold, and at last the ship
began to settle in the water; salt is very heavy.
But just before the ship sank to the water-line,
the Captain had a bright thought: he threw the
Little Mill overboard!
It fell right down to the bottom of the sea.
AND IT HAS BEAN GRINDING SALT EVER SINCE.
BILLY BEG AND HIS BULL[1]
[1] Adapted from In Chimney Corners, by Seumas McManus.
I have ventured to give this in the somewhat Hibernian
phraseology suggested by the original, because I have found
that the humour of the manner of it appeals quite as readily
to the boys and girls of my acquaintance as to maturer friends,
and they distinguish as quickly between the savour of it and
any unintentional crudeness of diction.
Once upon a time, there was a king and a
queen, and they had one son, whose name was
Billy. And Billy had a bull he was very fond
of, and the bull was just as fond of him. And
when the queen came to die, she put it as her
last request to the king, that come what might,
come what may, he'd not part Billy and the bull.
And the king promised that, come what might,
come what may, he would not. Then the good
queen died, and was buried.
After a time, the king married again, and the
new queen could not abide Billy; no more could
she stand the bull, seeing him and Billy so thick.
So she asked the king to have the bull killed.
But the king said he had promised, come what
might, come what may, he'd not part Billy Beg
and his bull, so he could not.
Then the queen sent for the Hen-Wife, and
asked what she should do. "What will you
give me," said the Hen-Wife, "and I'll very soon
part them?"
"Anything at all," said the queen.
"Then do you take to your bed, very sick with
a complaint," said the Hen-Wife, "and I'll do
the rest."
So the queen took to her bed, very sick with
a complaint, and the king came to see what
could be done for her. "I shall never be better
of this," she said, "till I have the medicine the
Hen-Wife ordered."
"What is that?" said the king.
"A mouthful of the blood of Billy Beg's bull."
"I can't give you that," said the king, and
went away, sorrowful.
Then the queen got sicker and sicker, and
each time the king asked what would cure her she
said, "A mouthful of the blood of Billy Beg's
bull." And at last it looked as if she were going
to die. So the king finally set a day for the bull
to be killed. At that the queen was so happy
that she laid plans to get up and see the grand
sight. All the people were to be at the killing,
and it was to be a great affair.
When Billy Beg heard all this, he was very
sorrowful, and the bull noticed his looks. "What
are you doitherin' about?" said the bull to him.
So Billy told him. "Don't fret yourself about
me," said the bull, "it's not I that'll be killed!"
The day came, when Billy Beg's bull was to
be killed; all the people were there, and the
queen, and Billy. And the bull was led out, to
be seen. When he was led past Billy he bent
his head. "Jump on my back, Billy, my boy,"
says he, "till I see what kind of a horseman you
are!" Billy jumped on his back, and with that
the bull leaped nine miles high and nine miles
broad and came down with Billy sticking between
his horns. Then away he rushed, over the head
of the queen, killing her dead, where you
wouldn't know day by night or night by day,
over high hills, low hills, sheep walks and
bullock traces, the Cove o' Cork, and old Tom
Fox with his bugle horn.
When at last he stopped he said, "Now,
Billy, my boy, you and I must undergo great
scenery; there's a mighty great bull of the forest
I must fight, here, and he'll be hard to fight,
but I'll be able for him. But first we must have
dinner. Put your hand in my left ear and pull
out the napkin you'll find there, and when you've
spread it, it will be covered with eating and
drinking fit for a king."
So Billy put his hand in the bull's left ear,
and drew out the napkin, and spread it; and,
sure enough, it was spread with all kinds of
eating and drinking, fit for a king. And Billy
Beg ate well.
But just as he finished he heard a great roar,
and out of the forest came a mighty bull, snorting
and running.
And the two bulls at it and fought. They
knocked the hard ground into soft, the soft into
hard, the rocks into spring wells, and the spring
wells into rocks. It was a terrible fight. But
in the end, Billy Beg's bull was too much for
the other bull, and he killed him, and drank his
blood.
Then Billy jumped on the bull's back, and the
bull off and away, where you wouldn't know day
from night or night from day, over high hills,
low hills, sheep walks and bullock traces, the
Cove o' Cork, and old Tom Fox with his bugle
horn. And when he stopped he told Billy to
put his hand in his left ear and pull out the
napkin, because he'd to fight another great bull
of the forest. So Billy pulled out the napkin
and spread it, and it was covered with all kinds
of eating and drinking, fit for a king.
And, sure enough, just as Billy finished eating,
there was a frightful roar, and a mighty great
bull, greater than the first, rushed out of the
forest. And the two bulls at it and fought.
It was a terrible fight! They knocked the hard
ground into soft, the soft into hard, the rocks
into spring wells, and the spring wells into rocks.
But in the end, Billy Beg's bull killed the other
bull, and drank his blood.
Then he off and away, with Billy.
But when he came down, he told Billy Beg
that he was to fight another bull, the brother of
the other two, and that this time the other bull
would be too much for him, and would kill him
and drink his blood.
"When I am dead, Billy, my boy," he said,
"put your hand in my left ear and draw out the
napkin, and you'll never want for eating or
drinking; and put your hand in my right ear,
and you'll find a stick there, that will turn into
a sword if you wave it three times round your
head, and give you the strength of a thousand
men beside your own. Keep that; then cut a
strip of my hide, for a belt, for when you buckle
it on, there's nothing can kill you."
Billy Beg was very sad to hear that his friend
must die. And very soon he heard a more
dreadful roar than ever he heard, and a tremendous
bull rushed out of the forest. Then came
the worst fight of all. In the end, the other
bull was too much for Billy Beg's bull, and he
killed him and drank his blood.
Billy Beg sat down and cried for three days
and three nights. After that he was hungry;
so he put his hand in the bull's left ear, and
drew out the napkin, and ate all kinds of eating
and drinking. Then he put his hand in the
right ear and pulled out the stick which was to
turn into a sword if waved round his head three
times, and to give him the strength of a thousand
men beside his own. And he cut a strip of the
hide for a belt, and started off on his adventures.
Presently he came to a fine place; an old
gentleman lived there. So Billy went up and
knocked, and the old gentleman came to the
door.
"Are you wanting a boy?" says Billy.
"I am wanting a herd-boy," says the gentleman,
"to take my six cows, six horses, six
donkeys, and six goats to pasture every morning,
and bring them back at night. Maybe you'd do."
"What are the wages?" says Billy.
"Oh, well," says the gentleman, "it's no use
to talk of that now; there's three giants live
in the wood by the pasture, and every day they
drink up all the milk and kill the boy that looks
after the cattle; so we'll wait to talk about
wages till we see if you come back alive."
"All right," says Billy, and he entered service
with the old gentleman.
The first day, he drove the six cows, six
horses, six donkeys, and six goats to pasture,
and sat down by them. About noon he heard
a kind of roaring from the wood; and out
rushed a giant with two heads, spitting fire
out of his two mouths.
"Oh! my fine fellow," says he to Billy, "you
are too big for one swallow and not big enough
for two; how would you like to die, then?
By a cut with the sword, a blow with the fist
or a swing by the back?"
"That is as may be," says Billy, "but I'll
fight you." And he buckled on his hide belt
and swung his stick three times round his
head, to give him the strength of a thousand
men besides his own, and went for the giant.
And at the first grapple Billy Beg lifted the giant
up and sunk him in the ground, to his armpits.
"Oh, mercy! mercy! Spare my life!" cried
the giant.
"I think not," said Billy; and he cut off his
heads.
That night, when the cows and the goats
were driven home, they gave so much milk
that all the dishes in the house were filled
and the milk ran over and made a little brook
in the yard.
"This is very queer," said the old gentleman;
"they never gave any milk before. Did you see
nothing in the pasture?"
"Nothing worse than myself," said Billy.
And next morning he drove the six cows, six
horses, six donkeys, and six goats to pasture
again.
Just before noon he heard a terrific roar; and
out of the wood came a giant with six heads.
"You killed my brother," he roared, fire
coming out of his six mouths, "and I'll very
soon have your blood! Will you die by a cut
of the sword, or a swing by the back?"
"I'll fight you," said Billy. And buckling
on his belt and swinging his stick three times
round his head, he ran in and grappled the
giant. At the first hold, he sunk the giant up
to the shoulders in the ground.
"Mercy, mercy, kind gentleman!" cried the
giant. "Spare my life!"
"I think not," said Billy, and cut off his heads.
That night the cattle gave so much milk that
it ran out of the house and made a stream, and
turned a mill wheel which had not been turned
for seven years!
"It's certainly very queer," said the old
gentleman; "did you see nothing in the
pasture, Billy?"
"Nothing worse than myself," said Billy.
And the next morning the gentleman said,
"Billy, do you know, I only heard one of the
giants roaring in the night, and the night before
only two. What can ail them, at all?"
"Oh, maybe they are sick or something,"
says Billy; and with that he drove the six
cows, six horses, six donkeys, and six goats
to pasture.
At about ten o'clock there was a roar like a
dozen bulls, and the brother of the two giants
came out of the wood, with twelve heads on
him, and fire spouting from every one of them.
"I'll have you, my fine boy," cries he; "how
will you die, then?"
"We'll see," says Billy; "come on!"
And swinging his stick round his head, he
made for the giant, and drove him up to his
twelve necks in the ground. All twelve of the
heads began begging for mercy, but Billy soon
out them short. Then he drove the beasts
home.
And that night the milk overflowed the mill-
stream and made a lake, nine miles long, nine
miles broad, and nine miles deep; and there are
salmon and whitefish there to this day.
"You are a fine boy," said the gentleman,
"and I'll give you wages."
So Billy was herd.
The next day, his master told him to look
after the house while he went up to the king's
town, to see a great sight. "What will it
be?" said Billy. "The king's daughter is to
be eaten by a fiery dragon," said his master,
"unless the champion fighter they've been feed-
ing for six weeks on purpose kills the dragon."
"Oh," said Billy.
After he was left alone, there were people
passing on horses and afoot, in coaches and
chaises, in carriages and in wheelbarrows, all
going to see the great sight. And all asked
Billy why he was not on his way. But Billy
said he didn't care about going.
When the last passer-by was out of sight,
Billy ran and dressed himself in his master's
best suit of clothes, took the brown mare from
the stable, and was off to the king's town.
When he came there, he saw a big round
place with great high seats built up around it,
and all the people sitting there. Down in the
midst was the champion, walking up and down
proudly, with two men behind him to carry
his heavy sword. And up in the centre of the
seats was the princess, with her maidens; she
was looking very pretty, but nervous.
The fight was about to begin when Billy got
there, and the herald was crying out how the
champion would fight the dragon for the princess's
sake, when suddenly there was heard a
fearsome great roaring, and the people shouted,
"Here he is now, the dragon!"
The dragon had more heads than the biggest
of the giants, and fire and smoke came from
every one of them. And when the champion
saw the creature, he never waited even to take
his sword,--he turned and ran; and he never
stopped till he came to a deep well, where he
jumped in and hid himself, up to the neck.
When the princess saw that her champion
was gone, she began wringing her hands, and
crying, "Oh, please, kind gentlemen, fight the
dragon, some of you, and keep me from being
eaten! Will no one fight the dragon for me?"
But no one stepped up, at all. And the dragon
made to eat the princess.
Just then, out stepped Billy from the crowd,
with his fine suit of clothes and his hide belt
on him. "I'll fight the beast," he says, and
swinging his stick three times round his head,
to give him the strength of a thousand men
besides his own, he walked up to the dragon,
with easy gait. The princess and all the people
were looking, you may be sure, and the dragon
raged at Billy with all his mouths, and they
at it and fought. It was a terrible fight, but
in the end Billy Beg had the dragon down, and
he cut off his heads with the sword.
There was great shouting, then, and crying
that the strange champion must come to the
king to be made prince, and to the princess,
to be seen. But in the midst of the hullabaloo
Billy Begs slips on the brown mare and is off
and away before anyone has seen his face. But,
quick as he was, he was not so quick but that
the princess caught hold of him as he jumped
on his horse, and he got away with one shoe
left in her hand. And home he rode, to his
master's house, and had his old clothes on and
the mare in the stable before his master came
back.
When his master came back, he had a great
tale for Billy, how the princess's champion had
run from the dragon, and a strange knight had
come out of the clouds and killed the dragon,
and before anyone could stop him had
disappeared in the sky. "Wasn't it wonderful?"
said the old gentleman to Billy. "I should say
so," said Billy to him.
Soon there was proclamation made that the
man who killed the dragon was to be found,
and to be made son of the king and husband
of the princess; for that, everyone should come
up to the king's town and try on the shoe which
the princess had pulled from off the foot of the
strange champion, that he whom it fitted should
be known to be the man. On the day set, there
was passing of coaches and chaises, of carriages
and wheelbarrows, people on horseback and
afoot, and Billy's master was the first to go.
While Billy was watching, at last came along
a raggedy man.
"Will you change clothes with me, and I'll
give you boot?" said Billy to him.
"Shame to you to mock a poor raggedy
man!" said the raggedy man to Billy.
"It's no mock," said Billy, and he changed
clothes with the raggedy man, and gave him
boot.
When Billy came to the king's town, in his
dreadful old clothes, no one knew him for the
champion at all, and none would let him come
forward to try the shoe. But after all had tried,
Billy spoke up that he wanted to try. They
laughed at him, and pushed him back, with
his rags. But the princess would have it that
he should try. "I like his face," said she; "let
him try, now."
So up stepped Billy, and put on the shoe, and
it fitted him like his own skin.
Then Billy confessed that it was he that
killed the dragon. And that he was a king's
son. And they put a velvet suit on him, and
hung a gold chain round his neck, and everyone
said a finer-looking boy they'd never seen.
So Billy married the princess, and was the
prince of that place.
THE LITTLE HERO OF HAARLEM[1]
[1] Told from memory of the story told me when a child.
A long way off, across the ocean, there is a
little country where the ground is lower than
the level of the sea, instead of higher, as it is
here. Of course the water would run in and
cover the land and houses, if something were
not done to keep it out. But something is done.
The people build great, thick walls all round
the country, and the walls keep the sea out.
You see how much depends on those walls,--
the good crops, the houses, and even the safety
of the people. Even the small children in that
country know that an accident to one of the
walls is a terrible thing. These walls are really
great banks, as wide as roads, and they are
called "dikes."
Once there was a little boy who lived in that
country, whose name was Hans. One day, he
took his little brother out to play. They went
a long way out of the town, and came to where
there were no houses, but ever so many flowers
and green fields. By-and-by, Hans climbed up
on the dike, and sat down; the little brother
was playing about at the foot of the bank.
Suddenly the little brother called out, "Oh,
what a funny little hole! It bubbles!"
"Hole? Where?" said Hans.
"Here in the bank," said the little brother;
"water's in it."
"What!" said Hans, and he slid down as
fast as he could to where his brother was playing.
There was the tiniest little hole in the bank.
Just an air-hole. A drop of water bubbled
slowly through.
"It is a hole in the dike!" cried Hans. "What
shall we do?"
He looked all round; not a person or a house
in sight. He looked at the hole; the little
drops oozed steadily through; he knew that
the water would soon break a great gap,
because that tiny hole gave it a chance. The
town was so far away--if they ran for help it
would be too late; what should he do? Once
more he looked; the hole was larger, now, and
the water was trickling.
Suddenly a thought came to Hans. He stuck
his little forefinger right into the hole, where it
fitted tight; and he said to his little brother,
"Run, Dieting! Go to the town and tell the
men there's a hole in the dike. Tell them I will
keep it stopped till they get here."
The little brother knew by Hans' face that
something very serious was the matter, and he
started for the town, as fast as his legs could
run. Hans, kneeling with his finger in the hole,
watched him grow smaller and smaller as he got
farther away.
Soon he was as small as a chicken; then he
was only a speck; then he was out of sight.
Hans was alone, his finger tight in the bank.
He could hear the water, slap, slap, slap, on
the stones; and deep down under the slapping
was a gurgling, rumbling sound. It seemed
very near.
By-and-by, his hand began to feel numb. He
rubbed it with the other hand; but it got colder
and more numb, colder and more numb, every
minute. He looked to see if the men were
coming; the road was bare as far as he could
see. Then the cold began creeping, creeping,
up his arm; first his wrist, then his arm to the
elbow, then his arm to the shoulder; how cold
it was! And soon it began to ache. Ugly
little cramp-pains streamed up his finger, up
his palm, up his arm, till they reached into his
shoulder, and down the back of his neck. It
seemed hours since the little brother went away.
He felt very lonely, and the hurt in his arm
grew and grew. He watched the road with all
his eyes, but no one came in sight. Then he
leaned his head against the dike, to rest his
shoulder.
As his ear touched the dike, he heard the
voice of the great sea, murmuring. The sound
seemed to say,--
"I am the great sea. No one can stand
against me. What are you, a little child, that
you try to keep me out? Beware! Beware!"
Hans' heart beat in heavy knocks. Would
they never come? He was frightened.
And the water went on beating at the wall,
and murmuring, "I will come through, I will
come through, I will get you, I will get you,
run--run--before I come through!"
Hans started to pull out his finger; he was so
frightened that he felt as if he must run for ever.
But that minute he remembered how much
depended on him; if he pulled out his finger, the
water would surely make the hole bigger, and
at last break down the dike, and the sea would
come in on all the land and houses. He set his
teeth, and stuck his finger tighter than ever.
"You shall NOT come through!" he whispered,
"I will NOT run!"
At that moment, he heard a far-off shout.
Far in the distance he saw a black something on
the road, and dust. The men were coming! At
last, they were coming. They came nearer, fast,
and he could make out his own father, and the
neighbours. They had pickaxes and shovels,
and they were running. And as they ran they
shouted, "We're coming; take heart, we're
coming!"
The next minute, it seemed, they were there.
And when they saw Hans, with his pale face,
and his hand tight in the dike, they gave a great
cheer,--just as people do for soldiers back from
war; and they lifted him up and rubbed his
aching arm with tender hands, and they told him
that he was a real hero and that he had saved
the town.
When the men had mended the dike, they
marched home like an army, and Hans was
carried high on their shoulders, because he was
a hero. And to this day the people of Haarlem
tell the story of how a little boy saved the dike.
THE LAST LESSON[1]
[1] Adapted from the French of Alphonse Daudet.
Little Franz didn't want to go to school, that
morning. He would much rather have played
truant. The air was so warm and still,--you
could hear the blackbird singing at the edge of
the wood, and the sound of the Prussians drilling,
down in the meadow behind the old sawmill.
He would SO much rather have played truant!
Besides, this was the day for the lesson in the
rule of participles; and the rule of participles in
French is very, very long, and very hard, and it
has more exceptions than rule. Little Franz
did not know it at all. He did not want to go
to school.
But, somehow, he went. His legs carried him
reluctantly into the village and along the street.
As he passed the official bulletin-board before
the town hall, he noticed a little crowd round it,
looking at it. That was the place where the
news of lost battles, the requisition for more
troops, the demands for new taxes were posted.
Small as he was, little Franz had seen enough to
make him think, "What NOW, I wonder?" But
he could not stop to see; he was afraid of being
late.
When he came to the school-yard his heart
beat very fast; he was afraid he WAS late, after
all, for the windows were all open, and yet he
heard no noise,--the schoolroom was perfectly
quiet. He had been counting on the noise and
confusion before school,--the slamming of desk
covers, the banging of books, the tapping of the
master's cane and his "A little less noise, please,"
--to let him slip quietly into his seat unnoticed.
But no; he had to open the door and walk up
the long aisle, in the midst of a silent room, with
the master looking straight at him. Oh, how hot
his cheeks felt, and how hard his heart beat!
But to his great surprise the master didn't scold
at all. All he said was, "Come quickly to your
place, my little Franz; we were just going to
begin without you!"
Little Franz could hardly believe his ears;
that wasn't at all the way the master was accustomed
to speak. It was very strange! Somehow--
everything was very strange. The room
looked queer. Everybody was sitting so still, so
straight--as if it were an exhibition day, or
something very particular. And the master--
he looked strange, too; why, he had on his fine
lace jabot and his best coat, that he wore only
on holidays, and his gold snuff-box in his hand.
Certainly it was very odd. Little Franz looked
all round, wondering. And there in the back of
the room was the oddest thing of all. There, on
a bench, sat VISITORS. Visitors! He could not
make it out; people never came except on great
occasions,--examination days and such. And it
was not a holiday. Yet there were the agent,
the old blacksmith, the farmer, sitting quiet and
still. It was very, very strange.
Just then the master stood up and opened
school. He said, "My children, this is the last
time I shall ever teach you. The order has come
from Berlin that henceforth nothing but German
shall be taught in the schools of Alsace and
Lorraine. This is your last lesson in French.
I beg you, be very attentive."
HIS LAST LESSON IN FRENCH! Little Franz could
not believe his ears; his last lesson--ah, THAT
was what was on the bulletin-board! It flashed
across him in an instant. That was it! His
last lesson in French--and he scarcely knew
how to read and write--why, then, he should
never know how! He looked down at his
books, all battered and torn at the corners; and
suddenly his books seemed quite different to
him, they seemed--somehow--like friends. He
looked at the master, and he seemed different,
too,--like a very good friend. Little Franz
began to feel strange himself. Just as he was
thinking about it, he heard his name called, and
he stood up to recite.
It was the rule of participles.
Oh, what wouldn't he have given to be able
to say it of from beginning to end, exceptions
and all, without a blunder! But he could only
stand and hang his head; he did not know a
word of it. Then through the hot pounding in
his ears he heard the master's voice; it was
quite gentle; not at all the scolding voice he
expected. And it said, "I'm not going to punish
you, little Franz. Perhaps you are punished
enough. And you are not alone in your fault.
We all do the same thing,--we all put off our
tasks till to-morrow. And--sometimes--to-
morrow never comes. That is what it has been
with us. We Alsatians have been always putting
off our education till the morrow; and now they
have a right, those people down there, to say to
us, `What! You call yourselves French, and
cannot even read and write the French language?
Learn German, then!'"
And then the master spoke to them of the
French language. He told them how beautiful
it was, how clear and musical and reasonable,
and he said that no people could be hopelessly
conquered so long as it kept its language, for
the language was the key to its prison-house.
And then he said he was going to tell them a
little about that beautiful language, and he
explained the rule of participles.
And do you know, it was just as simple as
A B C! Little Franz understood every word.
It was just the same with the rest of the grammar
lesson. I don't know whether little Franz
listened harder, or whether the master explained
better; but it was all quite clear, and simple.
But as they went on with it, and little Franz
listened and looked, it seemed to him that the
master was trying to put the whole French
language into their heads in that one hour.
It seemed as if he wanted to teach them all he
knew, before he went,--to give them all he had,
--in this last lesson.
From the grammar he went on to the writing
lesson. And for this, quite new copies had
been prepared. They were written on clean,
new slips of paper, and they were:--
France: Alsace.
France: Alsace.
All up and down the aisles they hung out from
the desks like little banners, waving--
France: Alsace.
France: Alsace.
And everybody worked with all his might,--
not a sound could you hear but the scratching
of pens on the "France: Alsace."
Even the little ones bent over their up and
down strokes with their tongues stuck out to
help them work.
After the writing came the reading lesson,
and the little ones sang their ba, be, bi, bo, bu.
Right in the midst of it, Franz heard a curious
sound, a big deep voice mingling with the
children's voices. He turned round, and there,
on the bench in the back of the room, the old
blacksmith sat with a big A B C book open on
his knees. It was his voice Franz had heard.
He was saying the sounds with the little
children,--ba, be, bi, bo, bu. His voice sounded
so odd, with the little voices,--so very odd,--it
made little Franz feel queer. It seemed so
funny that he thought he would laugh; then he
thought he wouldn't laugh, he felt--he felt
very queer.
So it went on with the lessons; they had
them all. And then, suddenly, the town clock
struck noon. And at the same time they heard
the tramp of the Prussians' feet, coming back
from drill.
It was time to close school.
The master stood up. He was very pale.
Little Franz had never seen him look so tall.
He said: "My children--my children"--but something
choked him; he could not go on. Instead he
turned and went to the blackboard and took up
a piece of chalk. And then he wrote, high up,
in big white letters, "Vive la France!"
And he made a little sign to them with his
head, "That is all; go away."
THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS
There was once a nation which was very
powerful, very fortunate, and very proud. Its
lands were fruitful; its armies were victorious
in battle; and it had strong kings, wise lawgivers,
and great poets. But after a great many
years, everything changed. The nation had no
more strong kings, no more wise lawgivers; its
armies were beaten in battle, and neighbouring
tribes conquered the country and took the
fruitful lands; there were no more poets except
a few who made songs of lamentation. The
people had become a captive and humiliated
people; and the bitterest part of all its sadness
was the memory of past greatness.
But in all the years of failure and humiliation,
there was one thing which kept this people from
despair; one hope lived in their hearts and kept
them from utter misery. It was a hope which
came from something one of the great poets of
the past had said, in prophecy. This prophecy
was whispered in the homes of the poor, taught
in the churches, repeated from father to son
among the rich; it was like a deep, hidden well
of comfort in a desert of suffering. The prophecy
said that some time a deliverer should be born
for the nation, a new king even stronger than
the old ones, mighty enough to conquer its
enemies, set it free, and bring back the splendid
days of old. This was the hope and expectation
all the people looked for; they waited through
the years for the prophecy to come true.
In this nation, in a little country town, lived
a man and a woman whose names were Joseph
and Mary. And it happened, one year, that
they had to take a little journey up to the town
which was the nearest tax-centre, to have their
names put on the census list; because that was
the custom in that country.
But when they got to the town, so many
others were there for the same thing, and it was
such a small town, that every place was crowded.
There was no room for them at the inn. Finally
the innkeeper said they might sleep in the stable
on the straw. So they went there for the night.
And while they were there, in the stable, their
first child was born to them, a little son. And
because there was no cradle to put Him in, the
mother made a little warm nest of the hay in
the big wooden manger where the oxen had
eaten, and wrapped the baby in swaddling
clothes, and laid Him in the manger, for a bed!
That same night, on the hills outside the
town, there were shepherds, keeping their
flocks through the darkness. They were tired
with watching over the sheep, and they stood or
sat about, drowsily, talking and watching the
stars. And as they watched, behold, an angel
of the Lord appeared unto them! And the
glory of the Lord shone round about them!
And they were sore afraid. But the angel said
unto them, "Fear not, for behold I bring you
good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people. For unto you is born, this day, in the city
of David, a saviour,--which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you: ye shall find
the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying
in a manger."
And suddenly there was with the angel a
multitude of the heavenly host, praising God,
and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good will toward men."
When the angels were gone up from them into
heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let
us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this
thing which is come to pass, which the Lord
hath made known unto us." And they came,
with haste, and they found Mary, and Joseph,
and the babe lying in a manger. And when
they saw Him in the manger, they knew that
the wonderful thing the angel said had really
happened, and that the great deliverer was born
at last.
THE CHILD-MIND; AND HOW TO SATISFY IT
"It is the grown people who make the nursery
stories," wrote Stevenson, "all the children
do is jealously to preserve the text." And the
grown person, whether he makes his stories
with pen or with tongue, should bring two
qualities at least to the work--simplicity of
language and a serious sincerity. The reason
for the simplicity is obvious, for no one, child or
otherwise, can thoroughly enjoy a story clouded
by words which convey no meaning to him.
The second quality is less obvious but equally
necessary. No absence of fun is intended by
the words "serious sincerity," but they mean
that the story-teller should bring to the child an
equal interest in what is about to be told; an
honest acceptance, for the time being, of the
fairies, or the heroes, or the children, or the
animals who talk, with which the tale is
concerned. The child deserves this equality of
standpoint, and without it there can be no entire
success.
As for the stories themselves, the difficulty
lies with the material, not with the CHILD. Styles
may be varied generously, but the matter must
be quarried for. Out of a hundred children's
books it is more than likely that ninety-nine will
be useless; yet perhaps out of one autobiography
may be gleaned an anecdote, or a reminiscence
which can be amplified into an absorbing tale.
Almost every story-teller will find that the open
eye and ear will serve him better than much
arduous searching. No one book will yield him
the increase to his repertoire which will come to
him by listening, by browsing in chance volumes
and magazines, and even newspapers, by observing
everyday life, and in all remembering his own
youth, and his youthful, waiting audience.
And that youthful audience? A rather too
common mistake is made in allowing overmuch
for the creative imagination of the normal child.
It is not creative imagination which the normal
child possesses so much as an enormous credulity
and no limitations. If we consider for a
moment we see that there has been little or
nothing to limit things for him, therefore
anything is possible. It is the years of our life as
they come which narrow our fancies and set a
bound to our beliefs; for experience has taught
us that for the most part a certain cause will
produce a certain effect. The child, on the
contrary, has but little knowledge of causes, and as
yet but an imperfect realisation of effects. If
we, for instance, go into the midst of a savage
country, we know that there is the chance of
our meeting a savage. But to the young child
it is quite as possible to meet a Red Indian
coming round the bend of the brook at the
bottom of the orchard, as it is to meet him in
his own wigwam.
The child is an adept at make-believe, but his
make-believes are, as a rule, practical and serious.
It is credulity rather than imagination which
helps him. He takes the tales he has been TOLD,
the facts he has observed, and for the most part
reproduces them to the best of his ability. And
"nothing," as Stevenson says, "can stagger a
child's faith; he accepts the clumsiest substitutes
and can swallow the most staring incongruities.
The chair he has just been besieging as a castle is
taken away for the accommodation of a morning
visitor and he is nothing abashed; he can skirmish
by the hour with a stationary coal-scuttle;
in the midst of the enchanted pleasuance he can
see, without sensible shock, the gardener soberly
digging potatoes for the day's dinner."
The child, in fact, is neither undeveloped
"grown-up" nor unspoiled angel. Perhaps he
has a dash of both, but most of all he is
akin to the grown person who dreams. With
the dreamer and with the child there is that
unquestioning acceptance of circumstances as they
arise, however unusual and disconcerting they
may be. In dreams the wildest, most improbable
and fantastic things happen, but they are
not so to the dreamer. The veriest cynic amongst
us must take his dreams seriously and without
a sneer, whether he is forced to leap from
the edge of a precipice, whether he finds himself
utterly incapable of packing his trunk in time
for the train, whether in spite of his distress at
the impropriety, he finds himself at a dinner-
party minus his collar, or whether the riches of
El Dorado are laid at his feet. For him at the
time it is all quite real and harassingly or
splendidly important.
To the child and to the dreamer all things are
possible; frogs may talk, bears may be turned
into princes, gallant tailors may overcome giants,
fir-trees may be filled with ambitions. A chair
may become a horse, a chest of drawers a coach
and six, a hearthrug a battlefield, a newspaper
a crown of gold. And these are facts which the
story-teller must realise, and choose and shape
the stories accordingly.
Many an old book, which to a modern grown
person may seem prim and over-rigid, will be
to the child a delight; for him the primness
and the severity slip away, the story remains.
Such a book as Mrs Sherwood's Fairchild Family
is an example of this. To a grown person
reading it for the first time, the loafing
propensities of the immaculate Mrs Fairchild, who
never does a hand's turn of good work for anyone
from cover to cover, the hard piety, the
snobbishness, the brutality of taking the children
to the old gallows and seating them before the
dangling remains of a murderer, while the lesson
of brotherly love is impressed are shocking
when they are not amusing; but to the child
the doings of the naughty and repentant little
Fairchilds are engrossing; and experience proves
to us that the twentieth-century child is as eager
for the book as were ever his nineteenth-century
grandfather and grandmother.
Good Mrs Timmin's History of the Robins,
too, is a continuous delight; and from its
pompous and high-sounding dialogue a skilful
adapter may glean not only one story, but one
story with two versions; for the infant of
eighteen months can follow the narrative of the
joys and troubles, errors and kindnesses of
Robin, Dicky, Flopsy and Pecksy; while the
child of five or ten or even more will be keenly
interested in a fuller account of the birds'
adventures and the development of their several
characters and those of their human friends and
enemies.
From these two books, from Miss Edgeworth's
wonderful Moral Tales; from Miss Wetherell's
delightful volume Mr Rutherford's Children;
from Jane and Ann Taylor's Original Poems;
from Thomas Day's Sandford and Merton; from
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Lamb's Tales
from Shakespeare, and from many another old
friend, stories may be gathered, but the story
teller will find that in almost all cases
adaptation is a necessity. The joy of the hunt,
however, is a real joy, and with a field which
stretches from the myths of Greece to Uncle
Remus, from Le Morte d'Arthur to the Jungle
Books, there need be no more lack of pleasure
for the seeker than for the receiver of the spoil.
End of
*The Project Gutenberg Etext of How To Tell Stories To Children
And Some Stories To Tell* #1 in our series by Sara Cone Bryant
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