Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for November


Five Eyes

In Hans' old Mill his three black cats

Watch the bins for the thieving rats.

Whisker and claw, they crouch in the night,

Their five eyes smouldering green and bright:

Squeaks from the flour sacks, squeaks from where

The cold wind stirs on the empty stair,

Squeaking and scampering, everywhere.

Then down they pounce, now in, now out,

At whisking tail, and sniffing snout;

While lean old Hans he snores away

Till peep of light at break of day;

Then up he climbs to his creaking mill,

Out come his cats all grey with meal—

Jekkel, and Jessup, and one-eyed Jill.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 15 The Assassins Pursue Pinocchio from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi Sir Humphrey Gilbert from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin Old Clothes and Old Houses from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess The Matchless Maiden Loses Her Golden Slipper (Part 1 of 2) from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum Christians to the Lions from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge If You Don't Like Conversation, Skip This Chapter (Part 3 of 3) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher Jephthah's Rash Promise and What Came from It from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Eric the Red from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall Don's Yellow Spring Flower from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Ass and His Driver from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Go A-Hunting from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Romulus and Remus from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price Old Granny Fox Investigates from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess The Little Sol Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
April Rain by Robert Loveman All Things Bright and Beautiful by Cecil Frances Alexander   Hark! Hark! The Lark! by William Shakespeare The Universe by Walter de la Mare Answer to a Child's Question by Samuel Taylor Coleridge A Sudden Shower by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Lion and the Mouse

A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion's nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her.

"Spare me!" begged the poor Mouse. "Please let me go and some day I will surely repay you."

The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go.

Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter's net. Unable to free himself, he filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and soon the Lion was free.


[Illustration]

"You laughed when I said I would repay you," said the Mouse. "Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion."

A kindness is never wasted.