Fourth Grade Read Aloud Banquet

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Week 51	Seasonal Story	Victoria—Peace from Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall	Seasonal Story	Seasonal Story	The Shannon and the Chesapeake from The Struggle for Sea Power by M. B. Synge	The Worker in Sandalwood from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Upon the Rock by Lisa M. Ripperton	Seasonal Story
	Seasonal Story	Honk, Honk, Honk! from The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp	Seasonal Story	Seasonal Story	Seasonal Story	Winter Wasps from Will o' the Wasps by Margaret Warner Morley	How They All Journeyed Back to the Capital from The Rose and the Ring by William Makepeace Thackeray
		Seasonal Poem	Winter by Alfred Lord Tennyson	Seasonal Poem	Seasonal Poem	Seasonal Poem	A Christmas Carol by Christina Georgina Rossetti

The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter

The Cat and the Old Rat

There was once a Cat who was so watchful, that a Mouse hardly dared show the tip of his whiskers for fear of being eaten alive. That Cat seemed to be everywhere at once with his claws all ready for a pounce. At last the Mice kept so closely to their dens, that the Cat saw he would have to use his wits well to catch one. So one day he climbed up on a shelf and hung from it, head downward, as if he were dead, holding himself up by clinging to some ropes with one paw.

When the Mice peeped out and saw him in that position, they thought he had been hung up there in punishment for some misdeed. Very timidly at first they stuck out their heads and sniffed about carefully. But as nothing stirred, all trooped joyfully out to celebrate the death of the Cat.

Just then the Cat let go his hold, and before the Mice recovered from their surprise, he had made an end of three or four.

Now the Mice kept more strictly at home than ever. But the Cat, who was still hungry for Mice, knew more tricks than one. Rolling himself in flour until he was covered completely, he lay down in the flour bin, with one eye open for the Mice.

Sure enough, the Mice soon began to come out. To the Cat it was almost as if he already had a plump young Mouse under his claws, when an old Rat, who had had much experience with Cats and traps, and had even lost a part of his tail to pay for it, sat up at a safe distance from a hole in the wall where he lived.

"Take care!" he cried. "That may be a heap of meal, but it looks to me very much like the Cat. Whatever it is, it is wisest to keep at a safe distance."

The wise do not let themselves be tricked a second time.