Fourth Grade Read Aloud Banquet

The Owl

When cats run home and light is come,

And dew is cold upon the ground,

And the far-off stream is dumb,

And the whirring sail goes round,

And the whirring sail goes round;

Alone and warming his five wits,

The white owl in the belfry sits.


When merry milkmaids click the latch,

And rarely smells the new-mown hay,

And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch

Twice or thrice his roundelay,

Twice or thrice his roundelay;

Alone and warming his five wits,

The white owl in the belfry sits.

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Week 41 Trembling on the Trail from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain The Story of the Black Hole of Calcutta from Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall Clouds from The Story Book of Science by Jean Henri Fabre A Bit of History from Our Little Frankish Cousin of Long Ago by Evaleen Stein A Second Charlemagne from The Struggle for Sea Power by M. B. Synge The Blue Rose from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Across the Lake by Lisa M. Ripperton The Last Supper from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
A Child of Long Ago from God's Troubadour, The Story of St. Francis of Assisi by Sophie Jewett
The Young Troubadour from God's Troubadour, The Story of St. Francis of Assisi by Sophie Jewett 		In the Toadfish's Shoe from The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp "The Little Lion" from Four American Patriots by Alma Holman Burton The Lean Cat and the Fat Cat from The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton The Gathering on the Rutli from Stories of William Tell Told to the Children by H. E. Marshall The Yellow Jackets from Will o' the Wasps by Margaret Warner Morley How Giglio and Angelica Had a Quarrel from The Rose and the Ring by William Makepeace Thackeray
  Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe Sir Galahad by Alfred Lord Tennyson   La Belle Dame Sans Merci from Poems by John Keats   Oct 9
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Fox and the Crow

One bright morning as the Fox was following his sharp nose through the wood in search of a bite to eat, he saw a Crow on the limb of a tree overhead. This was by no means the first Crow the Fox had ever seen. What caught his attention this time and made him stop for a second look, was that the lucky Crow held a bit of cheese in her beak.

"No need to search any farther," thought sly Master Fox. "Here is a dainty bite for my breakfast."

Up he trotted to the foot of the tree in which the Crow was sitting, and looking up admiringly, he cried, "Good-morning, beautiful creature!"


[Illustration]

The Crow, her head cocked on one side, watched the Fox suspiciously. But she kept her beak tightly closed on the cheese and did not return his greeting.

"What a charming creature she is!" said the Fox. "How her feathers shine! What a beautiful form and what splendid wings! Such a wonderful Bird should have a very lovely voice, since everything else about her is so perfect. Could she sing just one song, I know I should hail her Queen of Birds."

Listening to these flattering words, the Crow forgot all her suspicion, and also her breakfast. She wanted very much to be called Queen of Birds.

So she opened her beak wide to utter her loudest caw, and down fell the cheese straight into the Fox's open mouth.

"Thank you," said Master Fox sweetly, as he walked off. "Though it is cracked, you have a voice sure enough. But where are your wits?"

The flatterer lives at the expense of those who will listen to him.