Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for February

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 9	Pinocchio Sells His Spelling-Book from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi	The Black Douglas from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin	The Old Orchard Bully from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess	Water for the King's Son from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum	Voyage and Shipwreck from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge	Betsy Goes to School (Part 1 of 2) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher	The Present That Ehud Brought to King Eglon from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
	The Sea Fight from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall	A Frog Chorus (Part 2 of 3) from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch	Hercules and the Wagoner from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter	I Make Me a Raft from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin	Daedalus and Icarus from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price	Jimmy Skunk and Unc' Billy Possum Tell Stories from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess	The Fitting Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
	The Fairies by William Allingham	The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear	Eletelephony by Laura E. Richards	Nonsense Verse by Edward Lear	Nobody Knows by Walter de la Mare	The Four Winds by Frank Dempster Sherman	The First Bluebird by James Whitcomb Riley

The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter

The Frogs Who Wished for a King

The Frogs were tired of governing themselves. They had so much freedom that it had spoiled them, and they did nothing but sit around croaking in a bored manner and wishing for a government that could entertain them with the pomp and display of royalty, and rule them in a way to make them know they were being ruled. No milk and water government for them, they declared. So they sent a petition to Jupiter asking for a king.

Jupiter saw what simple and foolish creatures they were, but to keep them quiet and make them think they had a king he threw down a huge log, which fell into the water with a great splash. The Frogs hid themselves among the reeds and grasses, thinking the new king to be some fearful giant. But they soon discovered how tame and peaceable King Log was. In a short time the younger Frogs were using him for a diving platform, while the older Frogs made him a meeting place, where they complained loudly to Jupiter about the government.

To teach the Frogs a lesson the ruler of the gods now sent a Crane to be king of Frogland. The Crane proved to be a very different sort of king from old King Log. He gobbled up the poor Frogs right and left and they soon saw what fools they had been. In mournful croaks they begged Jupiter to take away the cruel tyrant before they should all be destroyed.

"How now!" cried Jupiter "Are you not yet content? You have what you asked for and so you have only yourselves to blame for your misfortunes."

Be sure you can better your condition before you seek to change.