First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for November

Aiken Drum



King Cole



The Old Man in Leather



Ye Fairy Ship

The Cow

The friendly cow all red and white,

I love with all my heart:

She gives me cream with all her might,

To eat with apple-tart.


She wanders lowing here and there,

And yet she cannot stray,

All in the pleasant open air,

The pleasant light of day;


And blown by all the winds that pass

And wet with all the showers,

She walks among the meadow grass

And eats the meadow flowers.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 33 The Cowardly Lion from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum How Audubon Came To Know about Birds from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Twin Lambs from Among the Farmyard People by Clara Dillingham Pierson The Little Brother and Sister from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton Retreat of the Ten Thousand from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Sunday from The Irish Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins How Aaron Made a Golden Calf and What Became of It from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Little Brown Bobby by Laura E. Richards 		Little Bo-Peep and Little Boy Blue by A. A. Milne
Rockaby, Lullaby by Josiah Gilbert Holland 		The Gardener by Robert Louis Stevenson The Dandelion, Anonymous Where Go the Boats? by Robert Louis Stevenson Lie A-Bed by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

A Town Mouse once visited a relative who lived in the country. For lunch the Country Mouse served wheat stalks, roots, and acorns, with a dash of cold water for drink. The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite.


[Illustration]

After the meal the friends had a long talk, or rather the Town Mouse talked about her life in the city while the Country Mouse listened. They then went to bed in a cozy nest in the hedgerow and slept in quiet and comfort until morning. In her sleep the Country Mouse dreamed she was a Town Mouse with all the luxuries and delights of city life that her friend had described for her. So the next day when the Town Mouse asked the Country Mouse to go home with her to the city, she gladly said yes.

When they reached the mansion in which the Town Mouse lived, they found on the table in the dining room the leavings of a very fine banquet. There were sweetmeats and jellies, pastries, delicious cheeses, indeed, the most tempting foods that a Mouse can imagine. But just as the Country Mouse was about to nibble a dainty bit of pastry, she heard a Cat mew loudly and scratch at the door. In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. When at last they ventured back to the feast, the door opened suddenly and in came the servants to clear the table, followed by the House Dog.


[Illustration]

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse's den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella.

"You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not," she said as she hurried away, "but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it."

Poverty with security is better than plenty in the midst of fear and uncertainty.