"Yes," I said; "your book was written from this book, and some of those other little red books there with it in the bookcase."
The child went back to the bookcase. She took down all the other volumes of Shakespeare, and, sitting on the rug with them, she spent an utterly absorbed hour in turning over their leaves. Finally she scrambled to her feet and set the books back in their places. "I've found which stories in these books are in my book, too," she remarked. "Mine are easier to read," she added; "but yours have lovely talk in them!"
Had she not read Lambs' "Tales" at eight I am not certain she would have ventured into the wide realms of Shakespeare at nine, and tarried there long enough to discover that in those realms there is "lovely talk."
Occasionally, to be sure, the children insist upon books being easy to read, and refuse to find "lovely talk" in them if they are not. It was only a short time ago that I read to a little boy Browning's "Pied Piper of Hamelin." When I had finished there was a silence. "Do you like it?" I inquired.
"Ye-es," replied my small friend; "it's a nice story, but it's nicer in my book than in yours. I'll bring it next time I come, so you can read it."
He did. The story was told in prose. It began, "There was once a town, named Hamelin, and there were so many rats in it that the people did not know what to do." Certainly this is "easier to read" than the forty-two lines which the poem uses to make an identical statement regarding the town named Hamelin. My little friend is only six. I hope that by the time he is twelve he will think the poem is as "nice" as, if not "nicer" than, the story in his book. At least he may be impelled by the memory of his pleasure in his book to turn to my book and compare the two versions of the tale.
The children of to-day, like the children of former days, read because they find in books such stuff as dreams are made of; and, in common with the children of all times, they must needs make dreams. Like the boys and girls of most eras, they desire to make also other, more temporal, things. To aid them in this there are books in quantities and of qualities not even imagined by the children of a few generations ago. The book the title of which begins with the words "How to Make" is perhaps the most distinctive product of the present-day publishing house. No other type of book can so effectively win to a love for reading a child who seems indifferent to books; who, as a boy friend of mine used to say, "would rather hammer in nails than read." The "How to Make" books tell such a boy how to hammer in nails to some purpose. I happened to see recently a volume called "Boys' Make-at-Home Things." With much curiosity I turned its pages,—pages illustrated with pictures of the make-at-home things of the title,—glancing at directions for constructing a weather-vane, a tent, a sled, and a multitude of smaller articles. I thought of my boyfriend. "Do you think he would care to have the book?" I inquired of his mother over the telephone.
"Well, I wish he would care to have any book!" she replied. "If you want to try this one—" She left the sentence unfinished, unless a sigh may be regarded as a conclusion.
I did try the book. "This will tell you how to have fun with your tools," I wrote, when I sent it to the boy.
Except for a laconic note of thanks, I heard nothing from my young friend about the book. One day last week I chanced to see his mother. "What do you think I am doing this afternoon?" she said. "I am getting a book for my son, at his own request! He is engrossed in that book you sent him. He is making some of the things described in it. But he wants to make something not mentioned in it, and he actually asked me to see if I could find a book that told how!"