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 4 The Talking-Cricket from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi The Sons of William the Conqueror from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin The Sun from The Seasons: Winter by Jane Marcet The Girl in the Goat-shed from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum The Death of Caesar from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Betsy Holds the Reins (Part 1 of 3) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher How Joshua Conquered the Land of Canaan from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Olaf's Fight with Havard from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall White Pine (Part 1 of 3) from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Frogs and the Ox from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Undertake a New Venture from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Pegasus and Bellerophon from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price Peter Rabbit Has Some Startling News from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess The Rigging Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
The Sandman by Margaret Vandegrift
The Quarrelsome Kittens, Anonymous 		At the Zoo by A. A. Milne The Twenty-Third Psalm, Bible The Old House by Walter de la Mare The Lighthouse by Sir Walter Scott Up and Down by George MacDonald
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

A Town Mouse once visited a relative who lived in the country. For lunch the Country Mouse served wheat stalks, roots, and acorns, with a dash of cold water for drink. The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite.


[Illustration]

After the meal the friends had a long talk, or rather the Town Mouse talked about her life in the city while the Country Mouse listened. They then went to bed in a cozy nest in the hedgerow and slept in quiet and comfort until morning. In her sleep the Country Mouse dreamed she was a Town Mouse with all the luxuries and delights of city life that her friend had described for her. So the next day when the Town Mouse asked the Country Mouse to go home with her to the city, she gladly said yes.

When they reached the mansion in which the Town Mouse lived, they found on the table in the dining room the leavings of a very fine banquet. There were sweetmeats and jellies, pastries, delicious cheeses, indeed, the most tempting foods that a Mouse can imagine. But just as the Country Mouse was about to nibble a dainty bit of pastry, she heard a Cat mew loudly and scratch at the door. In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. When at last they ventured back to the feast, the door opened suddenly and in came the servants to clear the table, followed by the House Dog.


[Illustration]

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse's den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella.

"You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not," she said as she hurried away, "but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it."

Poverty with security is better than plenty in the midst of fear and uncertainty.