Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet



Songs for July


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 5 Pinocchio Is Hungry from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi The White Ship from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin Sliding on the Ice from The Seasons: Winter by Jane Marcet Fire for the King's Son from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum The Empire of Rome from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Betsy Holds the Reins (Part 2 of 3) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher The Old Man Who Fought against the Giants from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Foes'-fear from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall Balsam Fir (Part 2 of 3) from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Dog, the Cock, and the Fox from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Am Shipwrecked from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Hercules from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price Peter Rabbit Tells His Story from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess The Wedding Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
A Sea Song from the Shore by James Whitcomb Riley How Many Seconds in a Minute? by Christina Georgina Rossetti The Monkeys and the Crocodile by Laura E. Richards Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost The Song of the Soldiers by Walter de la Mare The Snowdrop by Alfred Lord Tennyson Falling Snow, Anonymous
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A Roundabout Turn  by Robert H. Charles

A Roundabout Turn


[Illustration]

A Toad that lived on Albury Heath

Wanted to see the World.


[Illustration]

"It isn't that I dislike the Heath,

It's a perfectly charming Heath, of course—"


[Illustration]

"All this heather, and all this gorse,

All this bracken to walk beneath,

With its feathery fronds to the sky uncurled—

It's as jolly a Heath as ever was found."


[Illustration]

"But it's flat, and the World, they say, is round.

Yes, fancy," he said, "it's round, they tell me,

And wouldn't I like to go and see!"


[Illustration]

"But there, it's a long way down the road

For a fellow that walks as slow as a Toad."


[Illustration]

"If I had a horse, I'd go," said he,

"If only I had a horse!

Who's got a horse," he cried, "to sell me?"


[Illustration]

Well, nobody had, you see.


[Illustration]

But horses came to the Heath one day,

Mettlesome steeds in brave array,

With prancing legs and staring eyes,

And crimson saddles that fall and rise

As round the galloping squadron flies,

And tents, and swings and cokernut shies,

And a hoop-la stall with many a prize,

And races, and a band, and cheering.


[Illustration]

"Hark!" said the Toad, "what's this I'm hearing?

It must be the World arrived, by the sound;

"Now I'll see if it's really round!"


[Illustration]

Off he crawled to the thick of things,

And the crowds made crawling rather tiring.

"Dear me!" he said, "I wish I'd wings!

If this is the World," said he, perspiring,

"It's inconveniently full of Feet."


[Illustration]

When a sudden voice said, "Look—how sweet!

Mummy, a toad! Let's give him a treat."


[Illustration]

"It's not very safe for him here on the ground,

So I'll put him up—"


[Illustration]

"—on the merry-go-round!"


[Illustration]

And before the Toad could answer, the floor began to slide,

The horses started prancing, and the riders settled to ride,

And they all moved faster, and the band began to play,

And away round he went with them, away and away and away.

Hooray! . . . . .


[Illustration]

So the Toad rode the Roundabout

Round and round and round;

No one minded him, he sat without a sound;

He rather liked the movement, he rather liked the tune,

He just rode the Roundabout

All the afternoon.


[Illustration]

When the time to pay came,

What did he do?

"Tuppence a ride! Tuppence a ride! How much for you?"

Some had ridden for one ride, some had ridden for two—

"Seventy-nine,"  the Toad cried;

The boy said, "Coo!"


[Illustration]

"But never you mind," the Toad replied,

"Here's an I.O.U."


[Illustration]

"And now," he said, "I'll go, thanks.

I want to get home to tea."


[Illustration]

"Another for nothing? No,  thanks,

Not  any more for me!"


[Illustration]

Home, holding the grasses,

Crawling a crooked road,


[Illustration]

Slowly there passes


[Illustration]

A very unsteady


[Illustration]

Toad.


[Illustration]

"Well, and what have you found, dear?

And what have you seen and heard?"


[Illustration]

"Is the World really round, dear?"

"Round?"  he said, "My word!

Round?"  said he; "you should feel it spin!

Roundest place I ever was in!—

Round?" he chuckled, "it's that!

But it's rather," he said with a knowing wink—

"It's rather a giddy  place, I think."


[Illustration]

"Give me a drop of the dew to drink,

And give me the Heath;

it's flat!"


[Illustration]