Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for December


The Land of Nod

From breakfast on through all the day

At home among my friends I stay,

But every night I go abroad

Afar into the land of Nod.


All by myself I have to go,

With none to tell me what to do—

All alone beside the streams

And up the mountain-sides of dreams.


The strangest things are there for me,

Both things to eat and things to see,

And many frightening sights abroad

Till morning in the land of Nod.


Try as I like to find the way,

I never can get back by day,

Nor can remember plain and clear

The curious music that I hear.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 38 Changes in the Palace from The Little Lame Prince by Dinah Maria Mulock The King and His Hawk from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin Voices of the Dusk from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess The Forge in the Forest from The Forge in the Forest by Padraic Colum India at Last from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge The One-Eared Bear (Part 2 of 2) from The Bears of Blue River by Charles Major Saint Cosmo and Saint Damian from In God's Garden by Amy Steedman
The Visit of Pocahontas from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis
Captain Kendall's Plot from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis
The Death of Captain Kendall from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis 		A Pleasant Game from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Leap at Rhodes from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Make Another Voyage from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Bruin and Reynard Partners from Merry Tales by Eleanor L. Skinner The Foolishness of Unc' Billy Possum from The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Thornton Burgess The Flying-Fish Story from The Sandman: His Sea Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
The Gray Doves' Answer, Anonymous
The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson 		  The Night Will Never Stay by Eleanor Farjeon Come! by Walter de la Mare The Tree by Bjornstjerne Bjornson The Bumblebee by James Whitcomb Riley
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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