Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet



Songs for May


Five Eyes

In Hans' old Mill his three black cats

Watch the bins for the thieving rats.

Whisker and claw, they crouch in the night,

Their five eyes smouldering green and bright:

Squeaks from the flour sacks, squeaks from where

The cold wind stirs on the empty stair,

Squeaking and scampering, everywhere.

Then down they pounce, now in, now out,

At whisking tail, and sniffing snout;

While lean old Hans he snores away

Till peep of light at break of day;

Then up he climbs to his creaking mill,

Out come his cats all grey with meal—

Jekkel, and Jessup, and one-eyed Jill.


  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 7 Geppetto Gives Pinocchio His Breakfast from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi A Story of Robin Hood from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin The Thaw from The Seasons: Winter by Jane Marcet Crow-feather-Cloak Again (Part 2 of 2) from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum The Roman World from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge A Short Morning (Part 1 of 2) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher The Story of an Altar beside the River from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Harald's Battle from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall Tracks on the Snow from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Eagle and the Jackdaw from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Find a Strange Lodging Place from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Phaeton and the Chariot of the Sun from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price Jimmy Skunk Calls on Prickly Porky from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess The Captain Solomon Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
The World's Music by Gabriel Setoun The Sailors' Delight, Anonymous A Lobster Quadrille by Lewis Carroll The Watchman's Song, Anonymous The Cupboard by Walter de la Mare To a Child: Written in Her Album by William Wordsworth Naughty Claude by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf

A Shepherd Boy tended his master's Sheep near a dark forest not far from the village. Soon he found life in the pasture very dull. All he could do to amuse himself was to talk to his dog or play on his shepherd's pipe.

One day as he sat watching the Sheep and the quiet forest, and thinking what he would do should he see a Wolf, he thought of a plan to amuse himself.

His Master had told him to call for help should a Wolf attack the flock, and the Villagers would drive it away. So now, though he had not seen anything that even looked like a Wolf, he ran toward the village shouting at the top of his voice, "Wolf! Wolf!"

As he expected, the Villagers who heard the cry dropped their work and ran in great excitement to the pasture. But when they got there they found the Boy doubled up with laughter at the trick he had played on them.

A few days later the Shepherd Boy again shouted, "Wolf! Wolf!" Again the Villagers ran to help him, only to be laughed at again. Then one evening as the sun was setting behind the forest and the shadows were creeping out over the pasture, a Wolf really did spring from the underbrush and fall upon the Sheep.


[Illustration]

In terror the Boy ran toward the village shouting "Wolf! Wolf!" But though the Villagers heard the cry, they did not run to help him as they had before. "He cannot fool us again," they said.

The Wolf killed a great many of the Boy's sheep and then slipped away into the forest.

Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth.