Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet



Songs for June


My Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.


The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.


He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward, you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!


One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.



  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 29 The Fairy Promises To Make Pinocchio a Boy from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi Julius Cæsar from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin Some Feathered Diggers from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess The Hen-wife's Son and the Princess Bright Brow (Part 3 of 3) from The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said by Padraic Colum The Story of Marco Polo from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge "Understood Aunt Frances" (Part 3 of 4) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher The Shepherd Boy of Bethlehem from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
We Who Were Left Behind from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis
Baking Bread without Ovens from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis
An Unequal Division of Labor from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis
A Stem with Three Sides from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Rat and the Elephant from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Am Alarmed by a Voice from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Poor Old Good from Nursery Tales from Many Lands by Eleanor L. and Ada M. Skinner Sammy Jay Learns Peter Rabbit's Secret from The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Thornton Burgess Trouble from The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
To the Ladybird by Caroline Bowles Southey America by Samuel Francis Smith   Four-Leaf Clover by Ella Higginson Nicholas Nye by Walter de la Mare The Lost Doll by Charles Kingsley The Brook Song by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Milkmaid and Her Pail

A Milkmaid had been out to milk the cows and was returning from the field with the shining milk pail balanced nicely on her head. As she walked along, her pretty head was busy with plans for the days to come.

"This good, rich milk," she reused, "will give me plenty of cream to churn. The butter I make I will take to market, and with the money I get for it I will buy a lot of eggs for hatching. How nice it will be when they are all hatched and the yard is full of fine young chicks. Then when May day comes I will sell them, and with the money I'll buy a lovely new dress to wear to the fair. All the young men will look at me. They will come and try to make love to me,—but I shall very quickly send them about their business!"

As she thought of how she would settle that matter, she tossed her head scornfully, and down fell the pail of milk to the ground. And all the milk flowed out, and with it vanished butter and eggs and chicks and new dress and all the milkmaid's pride.

Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.


[Illustration]