Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for March

Alone

A very old woman
Lives in yon house.
The squeak of the cricket,
The stir of the mouse,
Are all she knows
Of the earth and us.

Once she was young,
Would dance and play,
Like many another
Young popinjay;
And run to her mother
At dusk of day.

And colours bright
She delighted in;
The fiddle to hear,
And to lift her chin,
And sing as small
As a twittering wren.

But age apace
Comes at last to all;
And a lone house filled
With the cricket's call;
And the scampering mouse
In the hollow wall.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Week 42	Living Creatures from The Little Lame Prince by Dinah Maria Mulock	The Endless Tale from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin	A Butcher and a Hummer from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess	EARTH: THE FIRST STORY from The Forge in the Forest by Padraic Colum The Seven Sleepers from The Forge in the Forest by Padraic Colum	The Last of the Moors from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge	Borrowed Fire (Part 2 of 2) from The Bears of Blue River by Charles Major	David's Handsome Son and How He Stole the Kingdom (Part 2 of 2) from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
	The Condition of the Colony from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis Tobacco from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis Captain Newport's Return from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis	Blue Chicory from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch	The Ass, the Fox, and the Lion from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter	I Teach Friday Many Things from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin	The Leaping Match from Merry Tales by Eleanor L. Skinner	What the Snow Did from The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Thornton Burgess	The Sounding Story from The Sandman: His Sea Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
	The Great Brown Owl by Ann Hawkshaw	Evening Red and Morning Gray, Anonymous		A Nautical Ballad, Anonymous	Five Eyes by Walter de la Mare	Jack Frost by Celia Thaxter	The Mill by Dinah Maria Mulock

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.

"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.