Kindergarten Read Aloud Banquet

Nursery Songs for February

A Child's Garden of Verses

Good and Bad Children

Children, you are very little,
And your bones are very brittle;
If you would grow great and stately,
You must try to walk sedately.

You must still be bright and quiet,
And content with simple diet;
And remain, through all bewild'ring,
Innocent and honest children.

Happy hearts and happy faces,
Happy play in grassy places—
That was how, in ancient ages,
Children grew to kings and sages.

But the unkind and the unruly,
And the sort who eat unduly,
They must never hope for glory—
Theirs is quite a different story!

Cruel children, crying babies,
All grow up as geese and gabies,
Hated, as their age increases,
By their nephews and their nieces.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Week 35	The Greatest Thing in the World	Naming the Horse The Spotted Calf	The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin	A Gossiping Fly	The Great White Bear	The Pole-Men Story	St. Paul, the Servant of Christ (Part 2 of 2)
Week 35	The Man in the Wilderness	Little Miss Muffet	Little Jack Horner	Diddle Diddle Dumpling	The Bird Scarer	Ring o' Roses	Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

Frederick Richardson's Book for Children by Frederick Richardson
[Illustration]

dropcap image NCE upon a time there was a wee wee Lambikin, who frolicked about on his little tottery legs, and enjoyed himself amazingly. Now one day he set off to visit his Granny, and was jumping with joy to think of all the good things he should get from her, when who should he meet but a Jackal, who looked at the tender young morsel and said: "Lambikin! Lambikin! I'll EAT YOU!"

But Lambikin only gave a little frisk, and said:

"To Granny's house I go,

Where I shall fatter grow,

Then you can eat me so."

The Jackal thought this reasonable, and let Lambikin pass.

By and by he met a Vulture, and the Vulture, looking hungrily at the tender morsel before him, said: "Lambikin! Lambikin! I'll EAT YOU!"

But Lambikin only gave a little frisk, and said:

"To Granny's house I go,

Where I shall fatter grow,

Then you can eat me so."

The Vulture thought this reasonable, and let Lambikin pass.

And by and by he met a Tiger, and then a Wolf, and a Dog, and an Eagle; and all these, when they saw the tender little morsel said: "Lambikin! Lambikin! I'll EAT YOU!"

But to all of them Lambikin replied, with a little frisk:

"To Granny's house I go,

Where I shall fatter grow,

Then you can eat me so."

At last he reached his Granny's house, and said, all in a great hurry: "Granny dear, I've promised to get very fat; so, as people ought to keep their promises, please put me into the corn-bin at once."

So his Granny said he was a good boy, and put him into the corn-bin, and there the greedy little Lambikin stayed for seven days, and ate, and ate, and ate, until he could scarcely waddle, and his Granny said he was fat enough for anything, and must go home.

But cunning little Lambikin said that would never do, for some animal would be sure to eat him on the way back, he was so plump and tender.

"I'll tell you what you must do," said Master Lambikin; "you must make a little drumikin out of the skin of my little brother who died, and then I can sit inside and trundle along nicely, for I'm as tight as a drum myself."

So his Granny made a nice little drumikin out of his brother's skin, with the wool inside, and Lambikin curled himself up snug and warm in the middle, and trundled away gayly.

Soon he met with the Eagle, who called out:

"Drumikin! Drumikin!

Have you seen Lambikin?"

And Mr. Lambikin, curled up in his soft warm nest, replied:

"Fallen into the fire, and so will you.

On little Drumikin! Tum-pa, tum-too!"

"How very annoying!" sighed the Eagle, thinking regretfully of the tender morsel he had let slip.

Meanwhile Lambikin trundled along, laughing to himself, and singing:

"Tum-pa, tum-too;

Tum-pa, tum-too!"

Every animal and bird he met asked him the same question:

"Drumikin! Drumikin!

Have you seen Lambikin?"

And to each of them the little slyboots replied:

"Fallen into the fire, and so will you.

On little Drumikin! Tum-pa, tum-too;

Tum-pa, tum-too; Tum-pa, tum-too!"

Then they all sighed to think of the tender little morsel they had let slip.

At last the Jackal came limping along, for all his sorry looks as sharp as a needle, and he called out:

"Drumikin! Drumikin!

Have you seen Lambikin?"

And Lambikin, curled up in his snug little nest, replied gayly:

"Fallen into the fire, and so will you.

On little Drumikin! Tum-pa——"

But he never got any farther, for the Jackal recognized his voice at once, and cried: "Hullo! you've turned yourself inside out, have you? Just you come out of that!"

Whereupon he tore open Drumikin and gobbled up Lambikin.