The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings
Once upon a time there was a little White Rabbit with two beautiful long pink ears and two bright red eyes and four soft little feet—such a pretty little White Rabbit, but he wasn’t happy.
Just think, this little White Rabbit wanted to be somebody else instead of the nice little rabbit that he was.
When Mr. Bushy Tail, the gray squirrel, went by, the little White Rabbit would say to his Mammy:
“Oh, Mammy, I wish I had a long gray tail like Mr. Bushy Tail’s.”
And when Mr. Porcupine went by, the little White Rabbit would say to his Mammy:
“Oh, Mammy, I wish I had a back full of bristles like Mr. Porcupine’s.”
And when Miss Puddle-Duck went by in her two little red rubbers, the little White Rabbit would say:
“Oh, Mammy, I wish I had a pair of red rubbers like Miss Puddle-Duck’s.”
So he went on and on wishing until his Mammy was clean tired out with his wishing and Old Mr. Ground Hog heard him one day.
Old Mr. Ground Hog is very wise indeed, so he said to the little White Rabbit:
“Why don’t you-all go down to Wishing Pond, and if you look in the water at yourself and turn around three times in a circle, you-all will get your wish.”
So the little White Rabbit trotted off, all alone by himself through the woods until he came to a little pool of green water lying in a low tree stump, and that was the Wishing Pond. There was a little, little bird, all red, sitting on the edge of the Wishing Pond to get a drink, and as soon as the little White Rabbit saw him he began to wish again:
“Oh, I wish I had a pair of little red wings!” he said. Just then he looked in the Wishing Pond and he saw his little white face. Then he turned around three times and something happened. He began to have a queer feeling in his shoulders, like he felt in his mouth when he was cutting his teeth. It was his wings coming through. So he sat all day in the woods by the Wishing Pond waiting for them to grow, and, by and by, when it was almost sundown, he started home to see his Mammy and show her, because he had a beautiful pair of long, trailing red wings.
But by the time he reached home it was getting dark, and when he went in the hole at the foot of a big tree where he lived, his Mammy didn’t know him. No, she really and truly did not know him, because, you see, she had never seen a rabbit with red wings in all her life. And so the little White Rabbit had to go out again, because his Mammy wouldn’t let him get into his own bed. He had to go out and look for some place to sleep all night.
He went and went until he came to Mr. Bushy Tail’s house, and he rapped on the door and said:
“Please, kind Mr. Bushy Tail, may I sleep in your house all night?”
But Mr. Bushy Tail opened his door a crack and then he slammed it tight shut again. You see he had never seen a rabbit with red wings in all his life.
So the little White Rabbit went and went until he came to Miss Puddle-Duck’s nest down by the marsh and he said:
“Please, kind Miss Puddle-Duck, may I sleep in your nest all night?”
But Miss Puddle-Duck poked her head up out of her nest just a little way and then she shut her eyes and stretched her wings out so far that she covered her whole nest.
You see she had never seen a rabbit with red wings in all her life.
So the little White Rabbit went and went until he came to Old Mr. Ground Hog’s hole and Old Mr. Ground Hog let him sleep with him all night, but the hole had beech nuts spread all over it. Old Mr. Ground Hog liked to sleep on them, but they hurt the little White Rabbit’s feet and made him very uncomfortable before morning.
When it came morning, the little White Rabbit decided to try his wings and fly a little, so he climbed up on a hill and spread his wings and sailed off, but he landed in a low bush all full of prickles, and his four feet got mixed up with the twigs so he couldn’t get down.
“Mammy, Mammy, Mammy, come and help me!” he called.
His Mammy didn’t hear him, but Old Mr. Ground Hog did, and he came and helped the little White Rabbit out of the prickly bush.
“Don’t you-all want your red wings?” Mr. Ground Hog asked.
“No, no!” said the little White Rabbit.
“Well,” said the Old Ground Hog, “why don’t you-all go down to the Wishing Pond and wish them off again?”
So the little White Rabbit went down to the Wishing Pond and he saw his face in it. Then he turned around three times, and, sure enough, his red wings were gone. Then he went home to his Mammy, who knew him right away and was so glad to see him and he never, never wished to be something different from what he really was again.
Southern Folk Tale.
STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF THEIR STIMULUS TO VERBAL EXPRESSION IN CHILDREN
| The Cat and the Mouse | In Firelight Stories |
| The Little Gray Pony | Maud Lindsay, in Mother Stories |
| The Little Boy Who Found his Fortune | In Firelight Stories |
| The Story of Ibbity | In Firelight Stories |
| The Cat, the Cock and the Fox | Kate Douglas Wiggin, in Tales of Laughter |
| Tom Tit Tot | Kate Douglas Wiggin, in Tales of Laughter |
| The Little Pink Rose | Sara Cone Bryant, in Best Stories to Tell to Children |
| The Little Traveler | Maud Lindsay, in Mother Stories |
| Tom, the Water Baby | Charles Kingsley, adapted in For the Children’s Hour |
CHAPTER X
STIMULATING THE EMOTIONS BY MEANS OF A STORY
A GROUP of school children recently started quarreling in the school yard during the morning recess time. The storm center was two small boys who had fallen out over a game of marbles. The entire class took sides; for Edgar and against Edgar, for Lawrence and against Lawrence and proceeded to wage individual warfare like a miniature army. Even the ringing of the school bell failed to stop the quarrel. The children took their seats unwillingly and with sour faces carrying the feud with them into the classroom.
The teacher was a wise young person who believed in attacking the matter of discipline along the lines of least resistance. She saw immediately that a general feeling of anger possessed the children; no one child could be blamed. So she set about creating an opposite, general feeling as quickly as possible. Setting aside other work for ten minutes she announced a story. Instantly, the tension was loosened. By the time she had finished Grimm’s story of “The Pot and the Kettle,” in which, as a climax, neither is able to taunt the other with being black, the children’s anger was gone, peace was restored, and the children were smiling. An emotional crisis had been successfully met by means of a story.
Our emotions, that is, our feelings of anger, joy, sorrow, hatred, jealousy, and love are older than we are. They may almost be classed as instinctive, for they manifest themselves so early. The baby gives examples of emotional explosions in his first month. These feelings have their rise in mental conditions over which we have no control; they are not dependent upon sensory stimuli; they are isolated, incoherent. They take hold of the personality of the subject in a hypnotic fashion, for the period of the feeling’s mastery we are anger, love, sorrow, or whatever emotion enthralls us.
The psychologists classify and subdivide the emotions into many divisions but the story teller is most concerned with making one elastic, wide classification of a child’s emotions; those that are concerned with bodily expression. A child is happy, he laughs; he is sad and he cries; he is angry, he fights; he is afraid, and he gives active evidence of cowardice. Because, during the time of his obsession by one of these emotions, a child is so completely mastered by his feelings, we discover that we can create for him by story suggestion a similar mental state.
The story which a child feels is going to be a force in his emotional development.
I came across one of my own, old Mother Goose books not long ago with the leaves that held the story of the “Babes in the Wood” pinned securely together. It told me as nothing else could have done the emotion caused in a child’s mind by this gruesome tale. I was afraid when I read the story. I felt all the terror experienced by the Babes in the Wood. My fear emotion was so unpleasant that I had pinned the story out of my sight. I wanted to feel some other emotion. Other children have similar emotions.
We will study stories, then, asking ourselves:
What emotion does this story stimulate?
By its unpleasant situations and images, does it inspire fear in a child? Does it make a child happy because of its bubbling good humor? Does it create child sympathy, courage, grief, anger, malice, charity, temperance? Each one of these states of feeling is characterized by bodily expression and we can almost mold character, and influence a child’s future life activity by means of the stories which we tell him.
Sometimes our sole object in this story emotion work will be to create an atmosphere of good humor and happiness in our children. Not by any means to be despised is the ability to make a child laugh. The power to feel humor in childhood means the power to take life not too seriously in adult life and the story that simply amuses and entertains has an important place in the story hour. In this class of happiness-making stories are: “Bre’r Rabbit and the Little Tar Baby,” “Johnny Cake,” “Epaminondos and His Aunty,” “The Mouse and the Sausage,” “The Greedy Cat,” “Lambikin,” “Chicken Little,” “The Cat and the Mouse” and a score more of sheer nonsense stories whose very improbability makes them tickle a child’s sense of humor and gives him the opportunity to express his feelings in laughter.
So many more stories than we realize put children into a state of fear. Oldest of all our emotions, since we share it alike with animals, fear peculiarly takes hold of a child during the early years when he is most interested in stories. The story situation that seems quite plausible to us and not in the least terrorizing, haunts a child at night, peers from shadowy corners at him in the daytime and makes of him, unwittingly, a little coward. The troll with only one eye, the giant who cracks human bones, the witch who exercises horrible spells should all be buried in some tomb of forgetfulness. Stories having such themes do nothing toward creating worthwhile emotions in the child’s mind. While their very improbability makes them plausible for us, they are, on the other hand, very real to children and should be avoided.
But we can make children self reliant and brave by giving them feelings of courage through listening to courage stories. The child who hears the stories of “Cedric, the Little Hero of Harlem,” “The Story of a Short Life,” “David and Goliath,” “Jean D’Arc,” “Tiny Tim,” “Jenny Wren,” is made one with each child hero, feels with them, dares with them, acts with them.
Each emotion that will prevail over and influence human action in adult life may be appealed to in childhood through stories.
The child who is greedy and selfish is led into a better state of feeling when he hears the story of “The King of the Golden River.” Always greed and avarice will be associated in his mind with the tragic end of the brothers, and the Happy Valley, full of plenty, and enjoyed by Gluck, will symbolize for him the reward of unselfishness. The child who is proud will feel the opposite emotion, humbleness, when he hears Oscar Wilde’s wonderful parable of “The Star-Child.” As children follow the wanderings of the Star-Child, his beauty gone, his mother lost to him because of his pride and, with him, find the successful end of the journey, they lose their own pride of heart with their story hero.
“And the gate of the palace opened, and the priests and the high officers of the city ran forth to meet him, and they abased themselves before him, and said, ‘Thou art our lord for whom we have been waiting, and the son of our King.’
“And the Star-Child answered them and said, ‘I am no king’s son, but the child of a poor beggar-woman. And how say ye that I am beautiful, for I know that I am evil to look at.’
“Then he, whose armour was inlaid with gilt flowers, and on whose helmet couched a lion that had wings, held up a shield, and cried, ‘How saith my lord that he is not beautiful?’
“And the Star-Child looked, and lo! his face was even as it had been, and his comeliness had come back to him, and he saw that in his eyes which he had not seen there before.
“And the priests and the high officers knelt down and said to him, ‘It was prophesied of old that on this day should come he who was to rule over us. Therefore, let our lord take this crown and this sceptre, and be in his justice and mercy our King over us.’
“But he said to them, ‘I am not worthy, for I have denied the mother who bare me, nor may I rest till I have found her, and known her forgiveness. Therefore, let me go, for I must wander again over the world, and may not tarry here, though ye bring me the crown and the sceptre.’ And as he spake he turned his face from them towards the street that led to the gate of the city, and lo! amongst the crowd that pressed round the soldiers, he saw the beggar-woman who was his mother, and at her side stood the leper, who had sat by the road.
“And a cry of joy broke from his lips, and he ran over, and kneeling down he kissed the wounds on his mother’s feet, and wet them with his tears. He bowed his head in the dust, and sobbing, as one whose heart might break, he said to her: ‘Mother, I denied thee in the hour of my pride. Accept me in the hour of my humility. Mother, I gave thee hatred. Do thou give me love. Mother, I rejected thee. Receive thy child now.’ But the beggar-woman answered him not a word.
“And he reached out his hands, and clasped the white feet of the leper, and said to him: ‘Thrice did I give thee of my mercy. Bid my mother speak to me once.’ But the leper answered him not a word.
“And he sobbed again, and said: ‘Mother, my suffering is greater than I can bear. Give me thy forgiveness, and let me go back to the forest.’ And the beggar-woman put her hand on his head, and said to him: ‘Rise,’ and the leper put his hand on his head, and said to him ‘Rise,’ also.
“And he rose up from his feet, and looked at them, and lo! they were a King and a Queen.
“And the Queen said to him, ‘This is thy father whom thou hast succored.’
“And the King said, ‘This is thy mother whose feet thou hast washed with thy tears.’
“And they fell on his neck and kissed him, and brought him into the palace, and clothed him in fair raiment, and set the crown upon his head, and the sceptre in his hand, and over the city that stood by the river he ruled, and was its lord. Much justice and mercy did he show to all, and the evil Magician he banished, and to the Woodcutter and his wife he sent many rich gifts, and to their children he gave high honour. Nor would he suffer any to be cruel to bird or beast, but taught love and loving-kindness and charity, and to the poor he gave bread, and to the naked he gave raiment, and there was peace and plenty in the land.”
What more effective emotional stimulus could be found than this?
The children whom we wish to feel pity should hear Andersen’s “Ugly Duckling”; Oscar Wilde’s, “The Birthday of the Infanta”; Daudet’s, “The Last Lesson”; “The House in the Wood” and “The Star Dollars” by Grimm and many other sympathy stories that only wait for our timely rendering.
In telling a story, having in mind its emotional effect upon a child’s mental life, we will need to use the greatest delicacy of discrimination in order to create just the story effect which we wish. We will not tell such stories so often as to cause them to lose their magic spell. We will appeal to but one emotion at a time through the story medium. We will make an appeal most strongly to those emotions that have bodily expression in a child’s daily speech and acts. We will remember that a child is so quick to smiles, so quick to tears that the pleasanter feelings should be the aim of our telling of emotion stories rather than the unpleasant ones.
Some of us may class Miss Mulock’s story of “The Little Lame Prince” as just a purely imaginative one; others of us are appealed to by its dramatic qualities. But, after all, the story has survived the test of years because of its big emotional appeal. It stands for pity, sympathy, courage, nearly all the emotions which we wish to strengthen in children.