PRESENTATION
Now let us read about a shepherd who was playing music. (The teacher reads the poem.) While he was playing, what did he see? He saw a little child sitting on a cloud.
What was the child doing? He was laughing.
Why? He liked the music.
What kind of music was it? It was pleasant, full of joy.
Where was the shepherd? In a valley.
Tell what the valley was like. It was wild. It had big rocks and hills on each side, and a cloud was over the valley.
What did the child ask him to do? To play "a song about a Lamb".
Why did he do that? Because the sheep were pretty and he thought he should like to hear pretty music about them.
How did the child like it? He asked the shepherd to play the tune again, and it was such beautiful music that the keen enjoyment of it made the tears come to his eyes.
What did the child next ask? He wished to have the music put into words, so he asked the shepherd to "sing" it.
How did the child enjoy it? It was so lovely that he "wept with joy".
What did he ask the shepherd to do? To "write" it down.
Why? The child thought it was so lovely that he wanted other children to hear it, too.
Yes, that is the way that we come to have all these pretty poems in our books. If they were only played or sung, not so many children could have the opportunity of enjoying them.
What do you need when you write? We need pens, and paper, and ink.
The shepherd had not steel pens, and white paper, and black ink. He may have used the bark of trees to write on.
How did he get a pen? He "plucked a hollow reed", and he "made a rural pen".
What does that mean? He took a hollow stalk, such as an oat straw or a weed, and cut it in the form of a pen.
What is a "rural pen"? "Rural" means belonging to the country. The pen was not made as ours are. The shepherd wrote about sheep and other things belonging to country life.
How did he get any ink? He took "water" from the stream and "stained" it so that it would leave a mark something like our ink.
Yes, the paper, the pen, and the ink would not be so good as at present, but they would serve as a beginning.