Fourth Grade Read Aloud Banquet

The Splendor Falls

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes dying, dying, dying.

O love they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field, or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Week 1	The Beginning of Things from The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit	Henry V of Monmouth—The Battle of Agincourt from Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall	The Six from The Story Book of Science by Jean Henri Fabre	Foreword from Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle The Dragon's House from Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle	William's Invitation from The Awakening of Europe by M. B. Synge	How the Whale Got His Throat from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Upon the Rock by Lisa M. Ripperton	Ezra's Great Bible Class in Jerusalem from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
	Alaric the Visigoth from Heroes of the Middle Ages by Eva March Tappan	Hunting the Snow from Winter by Dallas Lore Sharp	Leif the Lucky from Builders of Our Country: Book I by Gertrude van Duyn Southworth	The Monkey and the Crocodile from Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt	Far Away and Long Ago from The Children of Odin: A Book of Northern Myths by Padraic Colum	What Is an Insect? from Insect Life by Arabella B. Buckley	Beautiful as the Day from Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit
	Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind by William Shakespeare	The Night Wind by Eugene Field	The New Year by Alfred Lord Tennyson	Good Hours by Robert Frost	Excerpt from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" from Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge	Father William by Lewis Carroll	Star-Talk by Robert Graves

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.