And he flew toward the beautiful swans. As soon as they saw him they ran to meet him with outstretched wings.
“Kill me,” he said.
But as he bent his head he saw reflected in the water, not a dark, gray bird ugly to see, but a beautiful swan.
In Hawthorne’s “Great Stone Face” the climax lies in the discovery that Ernest is the likeness of the Great Stone Face, a delightful surprise to the child.
It is the same in “Red Riding Hood,” in “Tarpeia,” in “Why the Sea Is Salt.” It is the same in Daudet’s “Last Lesson.” Note the splendid climax of that masterpiece, the surprise that comes to Franz as he sits awaiting punishment, when the teacher, in all kindness, makes this announcement:
“My children, this is the last time I shall ever teach you. The order has come from Berlin that henceforth nothing but German shall be taught in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. This is your last lesson in French.”
With very young children the surprise element should be simple. Repetition used in a sequence, or jingle, accomplishes it well, as in the “Fee, fi, faugh, fum” in “Jack and the Beanstalk,” or “Who’s been sitting in my chair?” in “The Three Bears,” or “The better to see you, hear you, eat you” in “Red Riding Hood.” Each time the child hears the expression his interest is roused to a higher pitch, and his imagination is fired to such a point that he expects almost anything to happen.
After the climax is reached, the oral story should descend rapidly to a close. Many of the best oral stories end in the climax, and those that do not, add but a sentence or two or a paragraph at most to round out to completion. But they do not moralize and point out a lesson to the child. They leave him to see the moral for himself, and he sees it more clearly and is the more deeply impressed by it if he is allowed a few moments of silence after the completion of the story, instead of being drawn into conversation concerning it. Marie Shedlock, the English story-teller who has done so much to put the narrator’s art upon the plane where it deserves to be, advocates five minutes of silence after each story period, and in my own experience I have found that it is of value to the child. Conditions under which one works will, of course, govern this; but above all, do not end a story that delights a boy or girl and then kill the whole effect by saying, “Now, Peter, what does that story teach you?” Give the child credit for being an intelligent human being, and do not spoil a tale for him by turning it into a sermon while he is still tingling with the wonder and joy of it.