THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
Central Park, New York, covers an era of more than eight hundred acres, with a zoo and several small lakes. On one of the lakes there are large boats with a huge wooden swan on each side. Richard Harding Davis located one of his stories here: See "Van Bibber and the Swan Boats," in the volume called Van Bibber and Others.
1. How is this story like the preceding one? What difference in the characters? What difference in their homes?
2. How does Myra Kelly make you feel sympathy for the little folks? In what ways have their lives been less fortunate than the lives of children in your town?
3. What is peculiar about the talk of these children? Do they all speak the same dialect? Many of the children of the East Side never hear English spoken at home.
4. What touches of humor are there in this story?
5. What new words do you find? Define garrulous, pedagogically, cicerone.
6. Where did Miss Kelly get her materials for this story? See the life on page 37.
7. What other stories by this author have you read? This is from Little Citizens; other books telling about the same characters are Little Aliens, and Wards of Liberty.
8. Other books of short stories dealing with children are: Whilomville Stories, by Stephen Crane; The Golden Age, by Kenneth Grahame; The Madness of Philip, by Josephine Daskam Bacon; The King of Boyville, by William Allen White; New Chronicles of Rebecca, by Kate Douglas Wiggin. Read one of these, and compare it with Myra Kelly's story.