Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for January

I Had a Little Nut Tree



The Four Presents



Little Man and Maid



The Jolly Tester

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 Ass and the Load of Salt

A Merchant, driving his Ass homeward from the seashore with a heavy load of salt, came to a river crossed by a shallow ford. They had crossed this river many times before without accident, but this time the Ass slipped and fell when halfway over. And when the Merchant at last got him to his feet, much of the salt had melted away. Delighted to find how much lighter his burden had become, the Ass finished the journey very gayly.

Next day the Merchant went for another load of salt. On the way home the Ass, remembering what had happened at the ford, purposely let himself fall into the water, and again got rid of most of his burden.

The angry Merchant immediately turned about and drove the Ass back to the seashore, where he loaded him with two great baskets of sponges. At the ford the Ass again tumbled over; but when he had scrambled to his feet, it was a very disconsolate Ass that dragged himself homeward under a load ten times heavier than before.

The same measures will not suit all circumstances.


[Illustration]

The Ass and the Load of Salt