Fourth Grade Read Aloud Banquet



To a Mouse

On Turning Up Her Nest with the Plow, November, 1785

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,

Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou needna start awa' sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin and chase thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!


I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

And justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor earth-born companion

And fellow-mortal!


I doubtna, whiles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request:

I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave,

And never miss 't!


Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!

Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'!

And naething now to big a new ane

O' foggage green,

And bleak December's winds ensuin',

Baith snell and keen!


Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste,

And weary winter comin' fast,

And cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till, crash! the cruel coulter passed

Out through thy cell.


That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble

Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!

Now thou's turned out for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

And cranreuch cauld!


But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes o' mice and men

Gang aft a-gley,

And lea'e us naught but grief and pain,

For promised joy.


Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But, och! I backward cast my e'e

On prospects drear!

And forward, though I canna see,

I guess and fear.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 28 Happy Camp of the Freebooters from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain The Commonwealth—The Lord Protector from Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall The Chase from The Story Book of Science by Jean Henri Fabre The Tailltenn Fair from Our Little Celtic Cousin of Long Ago by Evaleen Stein The Fall of the Bastile from The Struggle for Sea Power by M. B. Synge The Little Humpbacked Horse from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Across the Lake by Lisa M. Ripperton At the Feast of Tabernacles from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
The Children's Crusade from Heroes of the Middle Ages by Eva March Tappan The Wild Animals at Play from Summer by Dallas Lore Sharp The King and His Province from Four American Patriots by Alma Holman Burton The Frog, the Crab, and the Serpent from The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton The Story of Sigmund and Signy from The Children of Odin: A Book of Northern Myths by Padraic Colum Pelopaeus Provisions Her Nest from Will o' the Wasps by Margaret Warner Morley The Escape from The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
Song of the River by Charles Kingsley Birds in Summer by Mary Howitt Little Birdie by Alfred Lord Tennyson A Song of Sherwood by Alfred Noyes What the Burdock Was Good For from Poems, Anonymous The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll Nurse's Song by William Blake
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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.


[Illustration]

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.