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.
CONTENTS
| 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 | |