The Emerald Story Book / Stories and legends of spring, nature and Easter - 1

Transcriber’s Note: This ebook was created in honour of Distributed Proofreaders’ 20th Anniversary.

THE EMERALD STORY BOOK

THE SPRING

Drawn by Maxfield Parrish

THE EMERALD
STORY BOOK

Stories and Legends of
Spring, Nature and Easter

COMPILED BY
ADA M. SKINNER
AND
ELEANOR L. SKINNER

NEW YORK
DUFFIELD & COMPANY
1915

INTRODUCTION

There is no richer theme for children’s stories than the miracle of Spring. The selections in “The Emerald Story Book” aim to serve the young reader’s interest in three ways. Some of the myths and legends are interesting or amusing because flowers, insects, or birds are presented as personalities and emphasise human qualities or feelings. Some of the stories and poems contribute to the child’s store of knowledge by attracting his attention to some fact, beauty, or blessing in nature which may have escaped his notice. Still others make an appeal by suggesting or affirming the abiding hope symbolised in the thought, “See the land her Easter keeping.”

The child’s heart is filled with the joy of spring,—with the rapture expressed in the thrush’s song which Mrs. Ewing describes. “Fresh water and green woods, ambrosial sunshine and sun-flecked shade, chattering brooks and rustling leaves, glade and sward and dell. Lichens and cool mosses, feathered ferns and flowers. Green leaves! Green leaves! Joy! Joy!”

The editors’ thanks are due to Mrs. Katherine Tynan-Hinckson for permission to use her poem, “Sheep and Lambs”; Miss Lucy Wheelock for her story, “A Little Acorn”; to Mr. Bliss Carman for “A Lyric of Joy”; Mr. Clinton Scollard for “The Little Brown Wren”; Mr. James Whitcomb Riley for the quotation from “Mister Hop-Toad”; Mrs. Agnes McClelland Daulton and Rand, McNally & Co., for two stories, “A Great Family” and “Jolly Little Tars”; Mr. Warren J. Brier for “Mr. Pine and Mr. Maple”; Mrs. Margaret Deland for her poem, “Jonquils”; Miss Helen Keller for “Edith and the Bees”; Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson for “A Child’s Easter”; and Mr. Alfred Noyes for his poem “Little Boy Blue”; and to the following publishers who have granted permission to reprint selections in this collection from works bearing their copyright: to G. P. Putnam’s Sons for “The Selfish Giant,” by Oscar Wilde; to Houghton Mifflin Co., for the poem, “Talking in Their Sleep,” by Edith M. Thomas; to the Atlantic Monthly and Silver Burdette Company for “The Maple Seed”; to A. Flanagan and Co., of Chicago, for “The Promised Plant,” from “Child’s Christ-Tales,” by Andrea Hofer Proudfoot, and “Pussy Willow,” from “Little People’s Doings and Misdoings” by Kate Louise Brown; to Doubleday, Page & Co., for “The House Wren,” from “Birds Every Child Should Know,” by Neltje Blanchan, and “Briar Rose” from “The Fairy Ring,” edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith; to Grace Duffield Godwin for “An Eastern Legend,” from Houjon Songs, published by Sherman, French & Co.; to Henry Holt & Co., for the selection, “Buz and Hum,” by Maurice Noël; The Churchman for “In the Garden: An Easter Prelude”; Fleming H. Revell Co., for “When Thou Comest Unto Thy Kingdom”; to The Sunday School Times for the “Story of Blue-Wings” and “The Wind, a Helper”; to The Youth’s Companion and Miss Helen Keller for the selection, “The Spirit of Easter”; to Messrs. Dodd, Mead and Co., and Mr. Paul R. Reynolds, for the selection from “The Children’s Bluebird,” by Maurice Maeterlinck.

	PAGE
[SPRING STORIES AND LEGENDS]
April	[2]
Robert Browning
The Spring-Maiden and the Frost Giants (Norse Legend)	[3]
Eleanor L. Skinner
How the Bluebird Was Chosen Herald	[14]
Jay T. Stocking
The Springtime	[32]
Eugene Field
The Selfish Giant	[41]
Oscar Wilde
The Promised Plant	[50]
Andrea Hofer Proudfoot
Brier Rose	[54]
Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith
Picciola (Adapted)	[61]
St. Saintine
St. Francis, the Little Bedesman of Christ	[67]
William Canton
Proserpina and King Pluto (Greek Myth)	[71]
Eleanor L. Skinner
The Wonder—A Parable (From “Parables”)	[82]
Friedrich Adolph Krummacher
[NATURE STORIES AND LEGENDS]
Green Things Growing (Poem)	[86]
Dinah Mulock Craik
The Story of a Little Grain of Wheat	[87]
May Byron
The Little Acorn	[100]
Lucy Wheelock
The Story of Two Little Seeds	[104]
George MacDonald
How the Flowers Came (Selected)	[107]
Jay T. Stocking
The Legend of Trailing Arbutus (Indian Legend)	[115]
Eleanor L. Skinner
The Fairy Flower (Adapted from “Norwood”)	[120]
Henry Ward Beecher
The Snowdrop	[127]
Hans Christian Andersen
What the Dandelion Told	[131]
Clara Maetzel
Verse	[137]
James Russell Lowell
A Great Family	[138]
Agnes McClelland Daulton
The Birth of the Violet (Legend)	[142]
Ada M. Skinner
A Lyric of Joy (Poem)	[148]
Bliss Carman
[AMONG THE TREE-TOPS]
Robin’s Carol (From “Angler’s Reveille”)	[150]
Henry van Dyke
How the Birds Came (Indian Legend)	[151]
Ada M. Skinner
How the Birds Learned to Build Nests	[154]
James Baldwin
Out of the Nest	[158]
Maud Lindsay
The Story of Blue-Wings	[164]
Mary Stewart
An Eastern Legend (Poem)	[170]
Grace Duffield Goodwin
The House Wren	[171]
Neltje Blanchan
The Little Brown Wren	[173]
Clinton Scollard
The Children of Wind and The Clan of Peace (A Christ-Legend) (Adapted)	[176]
Fiona MacLeod
[IN MEADOW AND POND]
A Spring Lilt (Poem)	[182]
Unknown
How Butterflies Came	[183]
Hans Christian Andersen
White Butterflies (Poem)	[184]
Algernon Charles Swinburne
The Butterfly	[185]
Mrs. Alfred Gatty
The Wind, a Helper	[196]
Mary Stewart
The Springing Tree: Willows	[203]
Mrs. Dyson
Pussy Willow	[210]
Kate Louise Brown
The Dragon Fly	[212]
Mrs. Alfred Gatty
The Cicada’s Story (Selected)	[220]
Agnes McClelland Daulton
Edith and the Bees	[226]
Helen Keller
The Little Tadpoles (From Stories in “Prose and Verse”)	[230]
Katharine Pyle
Mister Hop-Toad (Poem)	[237]
James Whitcomb Riley
Buz and Hum	[238]
Maurice Noël
The Story Without an End. 1. In the Green Meadow. 2. The Story of a Drop of Water	[246]
Translated by Sarah Austin from the German of A. Carove
Legend of the Forget-Me-Not	[253]
Ada M. Skinner
Four-Leaf Clover (Poem)	[256]
Ella Higginson
Jolly Little Tars	[257]
Agnes McClelland Daulton
Mr. Maple and Mr. Pine	[275]
Warren Judson Brier
[A GARDEN OF EASTER STORIES]
Old English Verse	[286]
The Easter Rabbit (German Legend)	[287]
Eleanor L. Skinner
The Boy Who Discovered the Spring	[295]
Raymond MacDonald Alden
Sheep and Lambs (Poem)	[308]
Katharine Tynan
Robin Redbreast—A Christ-Legend (Adapted) (From Christ-Legends)	[309]
Selma Lagerlöf
The Maple Seed	[318]
From The Atlantic Monthly
Why the Ivy Is Always Green	[322]
Madge Bingham
Jonquils (Poem)	[329]
Margaret Deland
When Thou Comest Into Thy Kingdom	[330]
Mary Stewart
The Legend of the Easter Lily	[345]
Ada M. Skinner
Song	[346]
Henry Neville Maughan
In the Garden: An Easter Prelude	[347]
W. M. L. Jay
“Spirit” and “Life”	[352]
Margaret Emma Ditto
A Child’s Easter (Poem)	[359]
Annie Trumbull Slosson
The Spirit of Easter	[363]
Helen Keller
There Are No Dead	[365]
Maurice Maeterlinck, adapted from “The Bluebird” by Madame Maeterlinck.
Little Boy Blue (Poem)	[370]
Alfred Noyes

INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS