Fourth Grade Read Aloud Banquet




The Wind and the Moon

Said the Wind to the Moon, "I will blow you out,

You stare

In the air

Like a ghost in a chair,

Always looking what I am about—

I hate to be watched; I'll blow you out."


The Wind blew hard, and out went the Moon.

So, deep

On a heap

Of clouds to sleep,

Down lay the Wind, and slumbered soon,

Muttering low, "I've done for that Moon."


He turned in his bed; she was there again!

On high

In the sky,

With her one ghost eye,

The Moon shone white and alive and plain.

Said the Wind, "I will blow you out again."


The Wind blew hard, and the Moon grew dim.

"With my sledge,

And my wedge,

I have knocked off her edge!

If only I blow right fierce and grim,

The creature will soon be dimmer than dim."


He blew and he blew, and she thinned to a thread.

"One puff

More's enough

To blow her to snuff!

One good puff more where the last was bred,

And glimmer, glimmer, glum will go the thread."


He blew a great blast, and the thread was gone

In the air

Nowhere

Was a moonbeam bare;

Far off and harmless the shy stars shone—

Sure and certain the Moon was gone!


The Wind he took to his revels once more;

On down,

In town,

Like a merry-mad clown,

He leaped and hallooed with whistle and roar—

"What's that?" The glimmering thread once more!


He flew in a rage—he danced and blew;

But in vain

Was the pain

Of his bursting brain;

For still the broader the Moon-scrap grew,

The broader he swelled his big cheeks and blew.


Slowly she grew—till she filled the night,

And shone

On her throne

In the sky alone,

A matchless, wonderful silvery light,

Radiant and lovely, the Queen of the Night.


Said the Wind: "What a marvel of power am I!

With my breath,

Good faith!

I blew her to death—

First blew her away right out of the sky—

Then blew her in; what strength have I!"


But the Moon she knew nothing about the affair;

For, high

In the sky,

With her one white eye,

Motionless, miles above the air,

She had never heard the great Wind blare.



  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 North Wind and the Sun

The North Wind and the Sun had a quarrel about which of them was the stronger. While they were disputing with much heat and bluster, a Traveler passed along the road wrapped in a cloak.

"Let us agree," said the Sun, "that he is the stronger who can strip that Traveler of his cloak."

"Very well," growled the North Wind, and at once sent a cold, howling blast against the Traveler.


[Illustration]

With the first gust of wind the ends of the cloak whipped about the Traveler's body. But he immediately wrapped it closely around him, and the harder the Wind blew, the tighter he held it to him. The North Wind tore angrily at the cloak, but all his efforts were in vain.

Then the Sun began to shine. At first his beams were gentle, and in the pleasant warmth after the bitter cold of the North Wind, the Traveler unfastened his cloak and let it hang loosely from his shoulders. The Sun's rays grew warmer and warmer. The man took off his cap and mopped his brow. At last he became so heated that he pulled off his cloak, and, to escape the blazing sunshine, threw himself down in the welcome shade of a tree by the roadside.

Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.


[Illustration]