Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for December


The Land of Story-Books

At evening when the lamp is lit,

Around the fire my parents sit;

They sit at home and talk and sing,

And do not play at anything.


Now, with my little gun, I crawl

All in the dark along the wall,

And follow round the forest track

Away behind the sofa back.


There, in the night, where none can spy,

All in my hunter's camp I lie,

And play at books that I have read

Till it is time to go to bed.


These are the hills, these are the woods,

These are my starry solitudes;

And there the river by whose brink

The roaring lions come to drink.


I see the others far away

As if in firelit camp they lay,

And I, like to an Indian scout,

Around their party prowled about.


So when my nurse comes in for me,

Home I return across the sea,

And go to bed with backward looks

At my dear land of Story-Books.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 12 Pinocchio Is Taken In by the Fox and the Cat from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi The Miller of the Dee from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin Peter Learns Something He Hadn't Guessed from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess How Maid-alone Ceased Being a Goose-herd from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum The Destruction of Pompeii from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge What Grade Is Betsy? (Part 2 of 2) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher How a Woman Won a Great Victory from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Homes in Iceland (Part 1 of 3) from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall Red Oak and Live Oak (Part 1 of 2) from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Fox and the Grapes from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Have a Strange Visitor from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Jason and the Golden Fleece from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price What Reddy Fox Saw and Did from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess The Cape Horn Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
The Sing-Away Bird by Lucy Larcom Dandelions by Helen Gray Cone   Ready for Duty by Anna B. Warner Wanderers by Walter de la Mare March by Lucy Larcom Seven Times One by Jean Ingelow
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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.