Fourth Grade Read Aloud Banquet




Berries

There was an old woman

Went blackberry picking

Along the hedges

From Weep to Wicking.

Half a pottle—

No more she had got,

When out steps a Fairy

From her green grot;

And says, "Well, Jill,

Would 'ee pick 'ee mo?"

And Jill, she curtseys,

And looks just so.

"Be off," says the Fairy,

"As quick as you can,

Over the meadows

To the little green lane,

That dips to the hayfields

Of Farmer Grimes:

I've berried those hedges

A score of times;

Bushel on bushel

I'll promise 'ee, Jill,

This side of supper

If 'ee pick with a will."

She glints very bright,

And speaks her fair;

Then lo, and behold!

She has faded in air.


Be sure old Goodie

She trots betimes

Over the meadows

To Farmer Grimes.

And never was queen

With jewellery rich

As those same hedges

From twig to ditch;

Like Dutchmen's coffers,

Fruit, thorn, and flower—

They shone like William

And Mary's bower.

And be sure Old Goodie

Went back to Weep,

So tired with her basket

She scarce could creep.

When she comes in the dusk

To her cottage door,

There's Towser wagging

As never before,

To see his Missus

So glad to be

Come from her fruit-picking

Back to he.


And soon as next morning

Dawn was grey,

The pot on the hob

Was simmering away;

And all in a stew

And a hugger-mugger

Towser and Jill

A-boiling of sugar,

And the dark clear fruit

That from Faërie came,

For syrup and jelly

And blackberry jam.


Twelve jolly gallipots

Jill put by;

And one little teeny one,

One inch high;

And that she's hidden

A good thumb deep,

Half way over

From Wicking to Weep.


  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 27 The Pirate Crew Set Sail from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain The Commonwealth—The Adventures of a Prince from Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall The Spider's Web from The Story Book of Science by Jean Henri Fabre Reconciliation at Last from The Little Duke by Charlotte M. Yonge Marie Antoinette from The Struggle for Sea Power by M. B. Synge The Happy Prince from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Across the Lake by Lisa M. Ripperton Saint Benedict from In God's Garden by Amy Steedman
Richard the Lion-Hearted from Heroes of the Middle Ages by Eva March Tappan The Summer Afield from Summer by Dallas Lore Sharp The License To Practice Law from Four American Patriots by Alma Holman Burton The Three Fish from The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton The Dragon's Blood from The Children of Odin: A Book of Northern Myths by Padraic Colum Lady Wasp of the Slender Waist from Will o' the Wasps by Margaret Warner Morley Irene's Clue from The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
  To a Butterfly by William Wordsworth The Grass by Emily Dickinson Robert of Lincoln by William Cullen Bryant A Sudden Shower from Poems by James Whitcomb Riley Some Names in the U. S. of A. by Peter Carlson Jul 3
First row Previous row          Next row Last row
The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Boy and the Nettle

A Boy, stung by a Nettle, ran home crying, to get his mother to blow on the hurt and kiss it.

"Son," said the Boy's mother, when she had comforted him, "the next time you come near a Nettle, grasp it firmly, and it will be as soft as silk."

Whatever you do, do with all your might.