The story telling at the Waldorf-Astoria was given under the auspices of Mrs. William Rogers Chapman, President of the Rubenstein Musical Club, to an audience of fourteen hundred, of which about seven hundred were children.
Miss Faulkner, in Mother Goose attire, told the children Mother Goose stories, assisted by singers who presented ballads to accompany the stories. Much to the amusement of the children, Miss Faulkner would sometimes change the text of the Mother Goose rhymes, and the children were not backward about crying out corrections of these errors. Miss Faulkner would say:
“Jack and Jill went up the hill,
Like a dutiful son and daughter;
Now Jack is sick, and Jill is ill,
They did not boil the water.”
This would be greeted by a chorus of, “No, No, that isn’t the way it goes!” and other exclamations.
Later, Miss Faulkner, in German costume, told the fairy story of “Hansel and Gretel.”
The “Gingerbread Man,” otherwise known as “Johnny Cake” and “The Wee Bunnock,” gave more pleasure to the children than any other story, perhaps because it was accompanied by Gingerbread Men in neat boxes, which were given to the children as souvenirs of the occasion.
Through the courtesy of Mrs. Chapman and with the assistance of Mrs. Arthur Elliot Fish, one hundred crippled children, from the Industrial School for Crippled Children, participated in the delights of the “Mother Goose” matinee.