Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for September


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 39 A Distant Tower from The Little Lame Prince by Dinah Maria Mulock Doctor Goldsmith from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin Peter Saves a Friend and Learns Something from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess FIRE: THE FIRST STORY from The Forge in the Forest by Padraic Colum
Phaethon from The Forge in the Forest by Padraic Colum 		The New Trade-Route from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge The Wolf Hunt (Part 1 of 2) from The Bears of Blue River by Charles Major Saint Faith from In God's Garden by Amy Steedman
Captain Smith's Expedition and Return from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis
An Exciting Adventure from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis
Taken before Powhatan from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis 		Goldenrod Honey from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Cock and the Jewel from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Have a Queer Dream from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin The Three Wishes from Merry Tales by Eleanor L. Skinner Why Unc' Billy Possum Didn't Go Home from The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Thornton Burgess The Log-Book Story from The Sandman: His Sea Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
Golden-Rod by Frank Dempster Sherman The Ride to Bumpville by Eugene Field   The Quest by Eudora Bumstead I Can't Abear by Walter de la Mare Today by Thomas Carlyle How the Leaves Came Down by Susan Coolidge
First row Previous row          Next row Last row
The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Goose and the Golden Egg

There was once a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg.


[Illustration]

The Goose and the Golden Egg

The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich. But it was not long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough.

Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the Goose and cutting it open. But when the deed was done, not a single golden egg did he find, and his precious Goose was dead.

Those who have plenty want more and so lose all they have.