Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for May


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 6 Pinocchio Falls Asleep from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi King John and the Abbott from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin Tea Table Talk from The Seasons: Winter by Jane Marcet Crow-feather-Cloak Again (Part 1 of 2) from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum Pax Romana from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Betsy Holds the Reins (Part 3 of 3) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher The Avenger of Blood and the Cities of Refuge from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Harald Is King from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall Tamarack (Part 3 of 3) from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch Belling the Cat from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Am Cast upon a Strange Shore from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Apollo and Diana from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price Peter Has To Tell His Story Many Times from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess The Far Country Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
The Babie by Hugh Miller 		The Sugar-Plum Tree by Eugene Field The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear Chanticleer by Celia Thaxter Hide and Seek by Walter de la Mare A Fable by Ralph Waldo Emerson America by Samuel Francis Smith
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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]