But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
Not all fathers are so occupied with business cares that they may not, if they would, attract their children and strengthen and ennoble their life by stories. Not a few fathers I have known have left this priceless heritage and memory to grateful children.
When should parents begin to tell stories to their children? As early as possible. When should they cease? At no point. Walter T. Field, in “Finger Posts for Children’s Reading,” tells of a father who read a course in history with his sons when they were grown into young manhood. Not the least reason for the father, as well as the mother, being the story-teller to their own children, is the comradeship of it. A well-loved writer once said that in his long experience he had never seen any family of boys go wrong where their father was their “chum,” if the father was himself the man he ought to be. The father’s comradeship with his boy or girl begins very early in the child-life, and the earlier it begins, the deeper and stronger will the roots go down into the soul. Story-telling during the golden years of childhood in the home, or as the father walks abroad into the country with his boy, will weld bonds of friendship between father and son that no after years can sunder.
Many homes cannot afford a large library of many books, but no home is so poor that parents in joyous partnership may not gather the children together on a winter’s evening or summer’s day, and tell them some of the great stories of the world. To do so is to reenter in joyous comradeship into the child’s enjoyment, which is the highest prerogative of a parent. It is in this sense “to become again as a little child.” And besides all, it is to be rewarded by discovering, as nearly as can be on this side of heaven, the fount of perennial youth.