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FOR THE STORY TELLER

BOOKS BY
CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY

Daily Program of Gift and Occupation Work
For the Children’s Hour
Firelight Stories
Stories and Rhymes for a Child
Songs of Happiness

FOR
THE STORY TELLER

STORY TELLING AND STORIES TO TELL

BY
Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

1913
MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
New YorkBostonPhiladelphiaAtlantaSan Francisco

Copyright, 1913,
By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY,
Springfield, Mass.

[PREFACE]

The new-old art of story telling is being rediscovered. We are finding that the children’s daily story hour in school, in the neighborhood house, and at home is a real force for mental and moral good in their lives. We are learning that it is possible to educate children by means of stories.

Story telling to be a developing factor in a child’s life must be studied by the story teller. There are good stories and there are poor stories for children. The story that fits a child’s needs to-day may not prove a wise choice for him to-morrow. Some stories teach, some stories only give joy, some stories inspire, some stories just make a child laugh. Each of these story phases is important. To discover these special types of stories, to fit stories to the individual child or child group, and to make over stories for perfect telling has been my aim in writing this book.

Through telling stories to many thousands of children and lecturing to students I have found that story telling is a matter of psychology. The pages that follow give my new theory of story telling to the teacher or parent.

Carolyn Sherwin Bailey.

CONTENTS

FOR THE STORY
TELLER

CHAPTER I
THE APPERCEPTIVE BASIS OF STORY TELLING

APPERCEPTION is a formidable and sometimes confusing term for a very simple and easy-to-understand mental process. I once told Seumus MacManus’ deliciously humorous story of Billy Beg and his Bull to a group of foreign boys and girls in one of New York’s East Side Settlement Houses. The children listened with apparent appreciation, but, halfway along in the story, it occurred to me to ask them if they had ever seen a bull. No one answered me at first. Then Pietro, a little dusky-eyed son of Italy, raised a grimy hand.

“I seen one last summer when we was on a fresh-air,” he said. “It’s a bigger cow, a bull is, with the bicycle handle-bars on her head.”

Pietro’s description of a bull was an example of apperception, the method by means of which a new idea is interpreted, classified, “let into” the human mind. He knew the class, cows. He also knew the class, bicycles. He did not know the class, bulls—at least vividly enough to be able to put the idea into terms of a verbal explanation and description. So he did the most natural thing in the world, the only possible mental process in fact by means of which children or adults classify the new. He interpreted it in terms of the old, explaining the unfamiliar idea, bull, by means of the familiar ideas, cow and a bicycle.

This, then, is apperception. It is the involuntary mental process by means of which the human mind makes its own the strange, the new, the unfamiliar idea by a method of fitting it into the class of familiar ideas already known. Apperception is a means of quick mental interpretation. It is the welcoming of strangers to the mind-habitation, strangers who come every day in the guise of unfamiliar names, terms, scenes, and phrases, and determining in which corner of the brain house they will fit most comfortably. The most natural process is finally to give these new ideas an old mind corner to rest in, or an old brain path in which to travel.

A child’s mind at the age when he is able to concentrate upon listening to a story, three or four years of age—kindergarten age—is not a very crowded house. It is a mind-house tenanted by a few and very simple concepts which he has made his own through his previous home, mother and play experiences. He is familiar with his nursery, his pets, his family, his toys, his food, his bed. If he is a country child he knows certain flowers, birds and farm animals, not as classes—flower, bird and animal—but as buttercup, robin and sheep. If he is a city child his mind has a very different tenantry, and he thinks in terms of street, subway, park, fire engine, ambulance. These to the city child are also individual ideas, not classes. He knows them as compelling, noisy, moving ideas which he has seen and experienced, but they do not at all appeal to him as classes.

The story of “The Three Bears” is an obviously interesting one to children upon entering school. It has its basis of interest in its apperceptive quality, and it illustrates better than almost any other story for children those qualities which bring about quick mental interpretation on the part of the listener. The unusual, strange, hazardous characters in the story, the three bears, are introduced to the child in old, comfortably familiar terms which catch his interest from the first sentence of the story. It is extremely doubtful if the story of three bears set in a polar or forest environment would ever have been popular so long or made so many children happy as has the story of the historical three bears who lived in a house, ate porridge from bowls, sat in chairs and slept in beds. Nor are these the only apperceptive links between the life of the bears and that of the child. There is a tiny bear in the story, the size, one may presuppose, of the child who is listening to the story. The to-be-classified idea, bear, is presented to children in this old folk tale in terms of already known ideas, house, porridge, chair, bed and tiny. Very few story tellers have appreciated the underlying psychologic appeal of the story of “The Three Bears,” but it illustrates a quality in stories that we must look for if we wish to make the story we select a permanency in the child’s mental life.

The apperceptive basis of story telling consists in study on the part of the story teller to discover what is the store of ideas in the minds of the children who will listen to the story.

Has the story too many new ideas for the child to be able to classify them in terms of his old ideas? On the other hand, has it one or two new thoughts so carefully presented through association with already familiar concepts that the child will be able to make them his own and give them a permanent place in his mind with the old ones?

A child’s mind is an eery place for an adult to try and enter. Teachers, kindergartners and story tellers are a little prone to think that a knowledge of one child’s mental content gives them the power to know the mind of the child-at-large. Our psychologists have given us studies of child mind, not child minds. This mind hypothesis is, perhaps, sufficient for the general working out of systems of teaching, but success in the delicate art of story telling means a most critical study and observation of the minds of the special group of children who will hear the story. The story teller must ask herself these questions:

“What do these children know?”

“Have they any experience other than that of the home on which to bank?”

“Do they come from homes of leisure or homes of industry?”

“Have they had a country or a city experience?”

“Have they passed from the stage of development when toys formed their play interest to the game stage in which chance and hazard interest them more deeply?”

“Are they American children, familiar with American institutions, or are they little aliens in our land, unfamiliar with and confused by our ways?”

When she has satisfactorily answered these questions, the story teller will select her story having for its theme, atmosphere and motif an idea or group of ideas that will touch the child’s mental life as she has discovered it and by means of which it will find a permanent place in his mind through its comfortable friendliness and familiarity.

The child who has come directly from his home and the sheltering arms of his mother or nurse should not, at first, be taken far afield through the lands of fairies and giants. If he is told a fairy story, it should have for its content the sweet, homely qualities that characterize the home. I am using as a good example of the apperceptive story, “The Cap that Mother Made.” The child listeners are carried, it is true, to the palace of a King and are formally introduced to a Princess, but this is brought about through the familiar symbols of the home: mother, brothers, the farmer, and the queer little cap with its red and green stripes and blue tassel. Although Anders, the story hero, spends a happy hour at the Princess’ ball, he finally finds his way home again, and the story has an apperceptive appeal which is unusual. It is full of precious, familiar concepts that establish an association in the child’s mind between fairyland and home. After hearing the story, he will be very apt always to remember a palace as a very charming place to visit, but not to stay in, when one may go home to mother.

The Cap that Mother Made

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Anders, who had a new cap. And a prettier cap you never have seen, for mother herself had knit it; and nobody could make anything quite so nice as mother did. It was altogether red, except a small part in the middle which was green, for the red yarn had given out; and the tassel was blue.

His brothers and sisters walked about squinting at him, and their faces grew long with envy. But Anders cared nothing about that. He put his hands in his pockets and went out for a walk, for he wished everybody to see how fine he looked in his new cap.

The first person he met was a farmer walking along by the side of a wagon load of wood. He made a bow so deep that his back came near breaking. He was dumbfounded, I can tell you, when he saw it was nobody but Anders.

“Dear me,” said he, “if I did not think it was the gracious little count himself!” And then he invited Anders to ride in his wagon.

But when one has a pretty, red cap with a blue tassel, one is too fine to ride in a wagon, and Anders walked proudly by.

At the turn of the road he met the tanner’s son, Lars. He was such a big boy that he wore high boots, and carried a jack-knife. He gaped and gazed at the cap, and could not keep from fingering the blue tassel.

“Let’s trade caps,” he said. “I will give you my jack-knife to boot.”

Now this knife was a very good one, though half the blade was gone and the handle was a little cracked; and Anders knew that one is almost a man as soon as one has a jack-knife. But still it did not come up to the new cap which mother had made.

“Oh, no, I’m not so stupid as all that; no, I’m not!” Anders said.

And then he said good-by to Lars with a nod; but Lars only made faces at him, for he had not been to school much, poor boy; and, besides, he was very much put out because he could not cheat Anders out of his cap which mother had made.

Anders went along, and he met a very old, old woman who courtesied till her skirts looked like a balloon. She called him a little gentleman, and said that he was fine enough to go to the royal court ball.

“Yes, why not?” thought Anders. “Seeing that I am so fine, I may as well go and visit the King.”

And so he did. In the palace yard stood two soldiers with shining helmets, and with muskets over their shoulders; and when Anders came to the gate, both the muskets were leveled at him.

“Where may you be going?” asked one of the soldiers.

“I am going to the court ball,” answered Anders.

“No, you are not,” said the other soldier, stepping forward. “Nobody is allowed there without a uniform.”

But just at this instant the princess came tripping across the yard. She was dressed in white silk with bows of gold ribbon. When she saw Anders and the soldiers, she walked over to them.

“Oh,” she said, “he has such a very fine cap on his head, and that will do just as well as a uniform.”

And she took Anders’ hand and walked with him up the broad marble stairs where soldiers were posted at every third step, and through the beautiful halls where courtiers in silk and velvet stood bowing wherever he went. For no doubt they thought him a prince when they saw his fine cap.

At the farther end of the largest hall a table was set with golden cups and golden plates in long rows. On huge silver dishes were piles of tarts and cakes, and red wine sparkled in shining glasses.

The princess sat down at the head of this long table; and she let Anders sit in a golden chair by her side.

“But you must not eat with your cap on your head,” she said, putting out her hand to take it off.

“Oh, yes, I can eat just as well,” said Anders, holding on to his cap; for if they should take it away from him nobody would any longer believe that he was a prince; and, besides, he did not feel sure that he would get it back again.

“Well, well, give it to me,” said the princess, “and I will give you a kiss.”

The princess was certainly beautiful, and Anders would have dearly liked to be kissed by her, but the cap which mother had made he would not give up on any condition. He only shook his head.

“Well, but see,” said the princess; and she filled his pockets with cakes, and put her own gold chain around his neck, and bent down and kissed him.

But he only moved farther back in his chair and did not take his hands away from his head.

Then the doors were thrown open, and the King entered with a large number of gentlemen in glittering uniforms and plumed hats. The King himself wore a purple mantle which trailed behind him, and he had a large gold crown on his white curly hair.

He smiled when he saw Anders in the gilt chair.

“That is a very fine cap you have,” he said.

“So it is,” replied Anders. “Mother knit it of her very best yarn, and everybody wishes to get it away from me.”

“But surely you would like to change caps with me,” said the King, raising his large, heavy crown from his head.

Anders did not answer. He sat as before, and held on to his red cap which everybody was so eager to get. But when the King came nearer to him, with his gold crown between his hands, then Anders grew frightened as never before. If he did not take good care, the King might cheat him out of his cap; for a King can do whatever he likes.

With one jump Anders was out of his chair. He darted like an arrow through all the beautiful halls, down all the marble stairs, and across the yard.

He twisted himself like an eel between the outstretched arms of the courtiers, and over the soldiers’ muskets he jumped like a little rabbit.

He ran so fast that the princess’s necklace fell off his neck, and all the cakes jumped out of his pockets. But his cap he still had. He was holding on to it with both hands as he rushed into his mother’s cottage.

His mother took him up in her lap, and he told her all his adventures, and how everybody wanted his cap. And all his brothers and sisters stood around and listened with their mouths open.

But when his big brother heard that he had refused to give his cap for the King’s golden crown, he said that Anders was stupid. Just think how much money one might get for the King’s crown; and Anders could have had a still finer cap.

That Anders had not thought of, and his face grew red. He put his arms around his mother’s neck and asked:

“Mother, was I stupid?”

His mother hugged him close and kissed him.

“No, my little son,” said she. “If you were dressed in silver and gold from top to toe, you could not look any nicer than in your little red cap.”

Then Anders felt brave again. He knew well enough that mother’s cap was the best cap in all the world.

From Swedish Fairy Tales.

This story is only an example of many others that may be selected and fitted to the mental status of the individual child or group of children who make up the story circle. I had great difficulty one season in gaining and holding the attention of a group of particularly rough boys to whom I was telling stories in a neighborhood house. To my surprise, they listened most attentively to an adaptation of “The King of the Golden River,” and clamored to have it repeated. Looking into the reason for their keen interest in the story, which really took them quite far afield in its descriptions and plot, I discovered that the incident of the holy water had gripped my audience. The boys were Romanists and they found a point in the story which touched their own lives, in the visits of the brothers and Gluck to the priest. I never afterward found difficulty in holding the attention of this special group of boys. I had been able to establish a bond of sympathy between the boys and the story characters.

Touching a child’s life through the medium of a story is like a friendly hand clasp. An Irish folk tale told to a group of little sons and daughters of Erin, one of the Uncle Remus tales told to a kindergarten circle of little negroes, the story of one of our Italian operas adapted to the understanding of Sicilian and Neapolitan children, one and all mean enriching those child lives. How could the Gaelic tale fit the Italian group, though, or the story of the opera make an appeal to the little negro boys and girls?

Successful story telling means, then, a careful consideration of the apperceptive basis of the story, first of all. This, reduced to very simple terms, means studying the mental life of a child and selecting for his first stories those that have a well-defined association through their word pictures, dialogue and plot with the child’s own previous experience. When the story teller makes the question of apperception the first consideration in selecting her stories, she will find that her appeal to the children will be an active and successful one.

Goody Two Shoes

SELECTED FOR ITS APPERCEPTIVE APPEAL

Of course Goody Two Shoes was not her real name. In fact, her father’s name was Meanwell, and he had once been rich, and prosperous, and one of the most well-to-do farmers in the parish, but he lost his money. However it happened one could hardly tell, but his farm was seized, and he was turned out with his wife, and Tommy, and little Marjery, with none of the necessaries of life to support them.

Care and discontent shortened the days of Farmer Meanwell. He was forced from his family and taken with a violent fever of which he died. Marjery’s poor mother died soon, too, of a broken heart, and Marjery and her little brother were left alone in the wide world; so they started off together, hand in hand, to seek their fortunes.

They were both very ragged, and though Tommy had two shoes, Marjery had but one. They neither had anything to support them save what they picked from the hedges, or got from the poor people; and they slept every night in a barn. Their relations, who were rich folk, took no notice of them, because they were ashamed to own such a poor little ragged girl as Marjery and such a dirty little curly-pated boy as Tommy.

But there was a very worthy clergyman named Mr. Smith who lived in the parish where little Marjery and Tommy were born; and having a relation come to see him who was a charitable man, he sent for these children. The gentleman ordered little Marjery a new pair of shoes, gave Mr. Smith some money to buy them clothes, and said he would take Tommy and make of him a little sailor. He had a new jacket and trousers made for Tommy, and he was soon ready to start for London.

It was hard indeed for Tommy and Marjery to part. Tommy cried, and Marjery cried, and they kissed each other a hundred times. At last Tommy wiped off Marjery’s tears with the end of his jacket and bid her cry no more, for he would come to her again when he returned from sea, and he began his journey with the kind gentleman while Marjery went crying to bed. And the instant that Marjery awoke the next morning, the shoemaker came in with the new shoes for which she had been measured.

Nothing could have helped little Marjery bear the loss of Tommy more than the pleasure she took in her two shoes. You remember she had worn only one shoe before, and a ragged one at that. She ran out to Mrs. Smith as soon as they were put on, and stroking down her ragged apron cried out, “Two shoes, Madam, see, two shoes!” And so she behaved to all the people she met, and she obtained the name of Goody Two Shoes.

With Tommy gone there was not a great deal for Goody Two Shoes to do, so she made up her mind that she would learn to read. Now in the long ago days when this little girl lived, one had to pay quite a sum of money to go to a dame’s school and be taught how to cross stitch, and to bow politely, and to read. Only rich children could go, but Goody Two Shoes would meet the little boys and girls as they came from school, and learn from them and then sit down and read until they returned. After a while she had taught herself more than they had learned of the dame, and she resolved to go the rounds of all the farms and teach the little children who were too poor to go to school.

And such a clever, pleasant way of teaching children to read as Goody Two Shoes invented! With her knife she cut some wooden sets of letters with which the children were to spell and make sentences by laying them together. These wooden letters she put in a basket and with the basket over her arm she became a little trotting tutoress who was known through all the countryside for her kindness and patience.

Each morning she would start out at seven and run up to the door of a farmhouse.

Tap, tap, tap!

“Who is there?” the mother of the house would ask.

“Only little Goody Two Shoes,” Marjery would answer, “come to teach Billy his A B C’s.”

“Oh, little Goody,” the mother would cry, opening the door wide. “I am glad to see you. Billy wants you sadly, for he has learned all his lesson.”

Little Billy would come out and have a new spelling lesson set him with the basket of letters, and then Goody would go on to Farmer Simpson’s.

“Bow, wow, wow!” said the dog at the door.

“Sirrah,” Mistress Simpson would say, “why do you bark at Little Two Shoes? Come in. Here’s Sally wants you sadly, for she has learned all her lesson.”

Then out came the little one.

“Good morning, Goody,” she would say.

“Good morning, Sally,” Goody Two Shoes would answer; “have you learned your lesson?”

“Yes, that’s what I have,” the little one would say, as she took the letters and spelled pear, and plum, and top, and ball, and puss, and cow, and lamb, and sheep, and bull, and cock, and hen.

“Good,” said Marjery, and she hurried on to Gaffer Cook’s cottage. Here a number of poor children were met to learn to read and they all crowded around Marjery at once. So she pulled out her letters and asked the little boy next to her what he had for dinner. He answered, bread.

“Well, then,” said she, “set the first letter.”

So he pulled out a big B, and soon the other letters, and there stood the word as plain as possible.

“And what had you, Polly Comb, for your dinner?” asked Goody Two Shoes.

“Apple-pie,” answered Polly as she spelled her word.

The next child had potatoes, the next beef and turnips, which were spelled with many other words until the lesson was done, and Goody set them a new task, and went on.

The next place she came to was Farmer Thompson’s, where there were a great many little ones waiting for her.

“Oh, little Miss Goody Two Shoes,” said one of them, “where have you been?”

“I have been teaching,” said Goody, “longer than I intended, and am afraid I am come too soon for you now.”

“No, but indeed you are not,” replied the other, “for I have got my lesson, and so has Sally Dawson, and so have we all,” and they capered about as if they were overjoyed to see her.

“Why, then,” said she, “you are all very good; so let us begin our lessons.”

She was indeed a wise and painstaking little tutoress for a long, long time. At last Dame Williams, who kept the village school for little gentlemen and ladies, became very old and infirm, and wanted to give up teaching. So the trustees sent for Little Two Shoes to examine her and see if she were able to keep the school.

They found that little Marjery was the best scholar and had the best heart of any one who wanted to be the teacher, and they gave her a most favorable report.

So Goody Two Shoes’ troubles and travels were over. She taught the dame school for the rest of her days, and never lacked for shoes or anything else needful.

Oliver Goldsmith, 1765.

Adapted.

STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF THEIR GENERAL APPERCEPTIVE APPEAL TO A CHILD UPON ENTERING SCHOOL

CHAPTER II
THE STORY WITH A SENSE APPEAL

THE senses are the only avenues to the brain by means of which the outside world makes its way into a little child’s inner consciousness. A baby’s brain is an almost unexplored, untracked place, empty save for a few instinct paths—certain motor tracts tenanted by inherited memories which lead him to cry, to nurse, and to perform some other reflex movements. This condition of the mind does not last long, however. The baby opens his eyes and sees the sunlight dancing in a yellow patch of gold upon the wall above his bed. Instantly, like a telegraphic message, there is delivered at the baby’s brain an idea, unnamed at first but ineffaceable—color. When he sees a red ball suspended by a string in front of his eager eyes, a second message is delivered at his mind-house, differentiating and localizing the first impression—color versus color. The formal names, red and yellow, do not enter into the process at all and are indeed quite unnecessary. The baby differentiates red and yellow months before he knows the color names.

The baby hears his mother’s voice and he receives by means of another telegraphic message the percept, sound. He touches a piece of ice, or his warm bottle, and learns by means of this direct contact, cold and warm. His nostrils admit the pleasurable odors of his scented bath, the dainty powder used for making his body comfortable or the bunch of roses that stands on his mother’s table, and he receives a new set of brain stimuli as he differentiates odors.

These are all such simple mental operations that we have rather taken them for granted, forgetting that Nature’s method of forcing, letting in impressions to the child’s mind, is the only way for us to give him knowledge. The surest way of educating a child is through an appeal to his senses. In a large degree this matter of sense training has been exemplified in hand work by the disciples of Froebel and Montessori, but the sense story has been completely overlooked. We have made little effort to appeal to a child’s mind through the story that has sense images of sight, touch, sound or taste to strengthen the mind impression which it makes.

If we analyze the story that has interested us most in a current magazine, we shall discover that, somehow, it made a direct appeal to our senses. It may have had the setting of some old garden, the description of which made us, in imagination, smell the clove pinks, roses, French lilacs and mignonette that grew in some garden of our childhood. Perhaps it was a sound story, giving us such speaking word pictures of bird songs, violin tones or even the human notes of voices that we almost heard the story instead of seeing it. On the other hand, the sense appeal of the story may have been that of color, of food—any sense stimulus that routed from their brain corners our old sense impressions and set them to working again. And it is almost impossible to gauge the effect upon cerebration of these stored-up sensory images.

That whiff of odor from a city flower cart brings suddenly to my mind an incident that I had not been cognizant of for years—the memory of a certain long-ago day when I purloined my Grandmother’s scissors and cut off two of my curls to make a wig for a hairless rag doll. What is the connection between this day of badness of my childhood and a dingy city flower wagon? Ah, I have it! There was a pot of Martha Washington geraniums in the room where I sat when I cut my hair. My small, serge sleeve brushed the leaves as I held the curls triumphantly to the light and the pungent odor found a permanent place in my mind, side by side with the other memory, ineffaceable, always ready to produce a recall.

Dr. Van Dyke once said that if he were able to paint a picture of Memory, he would picture her asleep in a bed of mint. He illustrated the value of sensory stimuli in fiction. One gauge of a perfectly constructed piece of fiction is its sense content. Does it include such writing as will make the reader see, taste, smell and hear? So, in stories for children we must apply the same test.

A child’s story, to interest, should have a strong sense appeal.

Many of the old, handed-down jingles and folk tales are full of eating and drinking, smelling delectable odors, hearing the sounds of child life and seeing over again child scenes. Therein lies their world appeal and the reason for their ancient and obvious popularity.

“The Queen of Hearts,
She made some tarts.”
“Little Tommy Tucker, sings for his supper;
What shall he eat? White bread and butter.”
“Ding, dong bell, Pussy’s in the well.”
“Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,
The beggars are coming to town.”
“Rockaby baby, your cradle is green.”
“The rose is red,
The violet blue,
Sugar is sweet
And so are you.”

One might go on indefinitely quoting lines of Mother Goose that tickle a child’s fancy and are undying in their appeal for the sole reason that they are sensual in the broader understanding of the term. They include simple, direct references to the mental concepts that the child has gained through his senses. Practically all that the normal, natural child has accomplished, mentally, up to the age of three or four years, has been to note bright colors, to handle everything he has come in contact with,—not, as so many persons suppose, for purposes of mischievous destruction, but rather to touch each object and make its feeling an integral part of his ego,—to eat and drink and to use his nostrils as a dog does. What more natural than that his beginnings in English should have for their basis a sense content that will help the child to name, put into words his previously acquired but unnamed sense impressions?

Miss Emilie Poulsson’s finger plays for little children have for their basic appeal the stimulating of a child’s ability to recall previously acquired sense impressions. In addition, the finger movements with which the child illustrates these rhymes give the added association of the sense of touch to strengthen and vivify the child’s interest in and memory of the rhyme stories. To illustrate:

“Here’s a ball for baby,

Big and soft and round.

Here’s the baby’s hammer,

Oh, how he can pound.

Here’s the baby’s music,

Clapping, clapping so.

Here are baby’s soldiers

Standing in a row—”

As the child grows beyond the age when Mother Goose and Finger Plays appeal to him, he still finds his greatest interest in those stories which stimulate his acquired sensory images. The mental operation of apperception described in the last chapter is so inclusive a process, covering, as it must of necessity, memory and perception, that it explains the appeal of the sense story to the mind of a child. Many of the stories quoted at the end of the chapter as being of universal interest to all children find their common points of interest in their sense pictures, so quickly grasped and so warmly welcomed by the child mind whose sense doors are always flung wide open.

It is to be questioned whether or not the story of “The Little Red Hen” would have been awarded such immortality if its heroine had been a plain hen and not red. Having been dyed with the crimson pigment of the imagination, however, by some old-world story teller, she has taken her cheerful, cackling way through the streets of childhood, an undying, classic fowl of fiction because she is colored. So it is with Elizabeth Harrison’s wonderful allegory of “The Little Gray Grandmother.” She might have been described in the story as a spirit, a fairy, a mythical character who influenced for good the lives of Wilhelm, Beata and the others. But instead of describing her invisibility—Miss Harrison paints it, colors her story heroine with the shades of intangible things. She is a little gray grandmother and her clothes are sea fog and her veil is of smoke. She is an animated part of the seashore home and is made of gray mist. What could be more artistic than the sense appeal of this story?

Why do children—all children—listen, gaping and ecstatic, to the account of the many and hazardous adventures of the Gingerbread Boy? Why do they beg to have the story told over again, even after they have heard it so many times that they know it by heart. Its universal popularity is not due to its folklore quality. Neither is it due to its plot and treatment, although these undoubtedly strengthen it. Its big appeal, however, is to the child’s sense of taste. The story arouses tasting images in the child’s mind, that are pleasurable and strong.

... “A chocolate jacket and cinnamon seeds for buttons! His eyes were made of fine, fat currants; his mouth was made of rose-colored sugar and he had a gay little cap of orange-sugar candy”—Sara Cone Bryant says in describing her Gingerbread Man. So, from this delectable, luscious paragraph about his make-up, to the climax of the story when the Gingerbread Man is devoured by the fox, the child hearers eat in imagination all the way.

“Why the Chimes Rang” makes a different and more ethical sense appeal to the child’s mind. The story stimulates in the listeners a deep interest in the old chime of bells that has hung silent for so long a time in the tower. One longs to hear them and waits anxiously for the miracle that will start their pealing. At the story climax, when an unselfish offering laid upon the altar works the wonder, it is possible to listen, in imagination, to the bells’ sweet music.

But why make this sense appeal to the child mind through the medium of a story, the story teller asks?

There are two very real and definite uses to which the sense story may be put.

Such sense stories as “The Little Red Hen,” “The Gingerbread Boy” and many others of similar character may be told not only to give pleasure to the child of kindergarten age who finds delight in their sensual content, but they have a very real value in resurrecting the dormant brain of a mentally deficient child. More and more attention is being given every year to the education of the feeble-minded child, both at home and in the public schools. We are discovering that it is possible to rouse to action a child’s sleeping brain by means of intensive sense training. We are teaching him to smell, taste, see color, discriminate forms and textiles, to open the telegraphic circuit of his senses. We are putting the world of realities into the arms of the feeble-minded child to touch, feel, taste, smell, see. So we educate him, but we must carry out the same system of sense training in his stories, selecting for his hearing those stories that make verbal and recall his previously acquired sense impressions.

There is one other use to which we may put the sense story. It is a means of strengthening any child’s imagination. The same mental operation by means of which a baby associates the idea cold with a block of ice, helps the child to feel the cold of Andersen’s “Little Match Girl.” In the first instance the association of cold and ice means self-preservation for the baby. He wishes to avoid an unpleasant sensation, so he does not touch the ice, but his former experience of touching it has left an ineffaceable image in his mind. In the second instance, the image cold is recalled in the mind of the child by the story and the result is a very different mental process. The child is able through the sensory stimulus of the story to feel with the little match girl, to put himself in her place, to understand her condition, because it is brought to him in a familiar term—cold.

The story teller who makes the wisest use of the sense story sees to it that the color, sound, taste or odor described in the story is used as a means to an end. One does not wish to stimulate sense images in a child’s mind for the simple operation of “making his thinking machine work” in old paths. What we must do is to utilize his sense impressions to strengthen new brain paths. Fortunately nearly all of the stories for children that have a sensory content utilize this mode of writing to strengthen the climax of the story. It only remains for the story teller to select her color, sound, taste, odor or touch story to meet the special needs of her children. The following story is an excellent illustration of utilizing the sense of taste to point a moral:

The Three Cakes

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Henry, who was away from his home at a boarding school.

He was a very special kind of boy, forever at his book, and he happened once to get to the very tip top of his class. His mother was told of it, and when it came morning, she got up early and went to speak with the cook as follows:

“Cook, you are to make a cake for Henry, who has been very good at school.”

“With all my heart,” said the cook, and she made a cake. It was as big as—let me see—as big as the moon. It was stuffed with nuts, and raisins, and figs, and candied fruit peel, and over it all was an icing of sugar, thick, and smooth, and very white. And no sooner was the cake home from the baking than the cook put on her bonnet and carried it to the school.

When Henry first saw it, he jumped up and down. He was not patient enough to wait for a knife, but he fell upon the cake tooth and nail. He ate and ate until school began, and after school was over he ate again with his might and main. At night he ate until bedtime, and he put the cake under his bolster when he went to bed and he waked and waked a dozen times that he might take a bite.

But the next day when the dinner bell rang, Henry was not hungry, and was vexed to see how heartily the other children ate. His friends asked him if he would not play at cricket, tan, or kits. Ah! Henry could not; so they played without him, and Henry could scarcely stand upon his legs. He went and sat down in a corner, and the head master sent for the apothecary to come with all his phials of physic. After some days Henry was well again, but his mother said that she would never let him have another cake.

Now there was another scholar in the same school, whose name was Francis. He had written his mother a very pretty letter without one misspelled word or blot, and so his mother, like the mother of Henry, sent him a great cake.

Francis decided that he would not be so unwise as to follow the example of Henry, so he took the cake, which was so heavy that he could hardly lift it, and he watched to see that no one was looking, and he slipped up to his chamber and put the cake in his box under lock and key. Every day at play time he used to slip away from his companions, go upstairs on tiptoe, and cut off a tolerable slice of his cake which he would eat by himself. For a whole week did he keep this up, but alas—the cake was so exceedingly large! At last the cake grew dry, and quickly after it became moldy. Finally the maggots got into it, and Francis, with great reluctance, was obliged to throw it away.

There was a third little gentleman who went to the same school as Henry and Francis, and his name was Gratian. One day his mother, whom he loved very dearly, sent him a cake because she also loved him. No sooner had it arrived than Gratian called his friends all about him, and said:

“Come! Look at what my mother has sent me. You must, each one, have a piece.” So the children all got around the cake as bees resort to a flower, just blown, and Gratian divided the cake with a knife into as many pieces as he had invited boys, with one piece over, for himself. His own piece he said he would eat the next day, and he began playing games with the boys.

But a very short time had passed, as they were playing, when a poor man who was carrying a fiddle came into the school yard. He had a very long, gray beard, and he was guided by a little dog who went before him, for the old man was blind.

The children noticed how dexterous was the little dog in leading, and how he shook a bell which hung underneath his collar, as if to say:

“Do not throw down or run against my master!”

When the two had come into the yard, the old man sat down upon a stone, and said:

“My dear little gentlemen, I will play you all the pretty tunes that I know, if you will give me leave.”

The children wished for nothing half so much as to hear the music, so the old man put his violin in tune and then played over jigs and tunes that had been new in former times.

But Gratian, who was standing close to him, noticed that while he played his jolliest airs, a tear would often roll down his cheeks. And Gratian asked him why he wept.

“Because,” said the old man, “I am hungry. I have not any one in the world to feed me, or my faithful dog.”

Then Gratian felt like crying, too, and he ran to fetch the cake which he had saved to eat himself. He brought it out with joy, and as he ran along he said:

“Here, good man, here is some cake for you.”

Then Gratian put the cake into the old man’s hands and he, laying down his fiddle, wiped his eyes and began to eat. At every piece he put into his mouth he gave a bit to his faithful little dog, who ate from his hand; and Gratian, standing by, had as much pleasure as if he had eaten the cake himself.

From the French of Monsieur Berquin’s L’Ami des Enfants—1784

STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF THEIR SENSE APPEAL TO THE CHILD’S MIND

CHAPTER III
WHEN THE CURTAIN RISES

A TIRED-OUT, unenthusiastic school teacher in one of our large public schools was recently endeavoring to secure the attention of her class for a story. This story hour was, for her, just one lap in the march of the day’s routine, a period to be finished as soon as possible, and she began it in a stereotyped way.

“I am going to tell you a story, children,” she said, “and I want every child in the room to sit up straight, put his feet flat on the floor and fold his hands. When everybody is ready, I will begin.”

In contrast one is reminded of another teacher, who opened her story hour in a different way. In point of fact, she did not really open it at all in the formal understanding of the word. Nor did she have any specified period of the day for telling stories. When her class was fatigued and needed a note of relaxation, when they were restless and needed calming, when they seemed to need inspiration, she gave the signal for books and pencils to be put away and with no further introduction she took the children with her to Story Land for a space, opening her story in so interesting a way that she compelled attention without asking for it.

The instance of the first story teller is an example of securing a child’s voluntary attention.

The second story teller illustrated a method of securing a child’s involuntary, almost unconscious attention.

Especially in the case of the little child who is beginning his school work, and even up to the more mature years of childhood, voluntary attention, that mental operation in which the will is called upon to open the doors of the senses and let in knowledge, is almost too much for us to ask of a child. The wonderful machinery of the mind has provided another and much more economic means of knowledge acquisition. Certain mind stimuli will set the whole wireless system of perception, association and memory going without any effort on the part of the story teller save that of discovering the stimuli. In other words, we must secure involuntary attention in children through studying their interests. The story that opens with headlines of child interest as compelling as those of one of our yellow news sheets will hold a child’s attention without his being in the least conscious of his attitude of mind toward it. Voluntary attention, the mind attitude toward a story that is brought about by folded hands and straight backs, is very likely to lapse, to develop a will-o’-the-wisp character and finally lose itself. Concentrated attention can be secured in children only through the medium of appealing to child interest.

The successful story teller will bear in mind the fact, in selecting stories to tell, that the good story for children of any age, and adults too, for that matter, should have one of the qualities that characterize a successful drama. It must catch the attention of the audience the moment the curtain rises. There must be no long explanation, no descriptive scenes and painful dragging in of the plot. Children do not care a rap for the creating of atmosphere. They do not care how long ago the story events happened, or why they happened. What they are eager for is a quick story appeal made the second that the story curtain rolls up.

Each story told to children ought to be selected having in mind its beginning. The story teller must ask herself another set of questions:

“Does the story interest begin with my first paragraph, my first sentence, my first word?”

“Will the opening of my story find an apperceptive basis for attention in the minds of my children?”

“Has my story a sense appeal in the first sentence?”

Any one of these qualities of story opening will help to win the sympathy of the child audience and will find a ready response in involuntary attention.

A class of little street boys waged continued warfare upon one of the New York Settlement Houses. They broke the windows, mobbed the Settlement children and carefully evaded the police. The Settlement story teller decided, one night, to open the doors of the house to the gang of boys and see if it would not be possible to win them over to an interest in the work of the Settlement and lead them to obey the laws of society through stories. The boys entered the building like a besieging army. They shouted, stamped, stampeded into the room that had been assigned them and throwing down chairs and overturning tables they proceeded to produce a scene of Bedlam. The story teller made no effort to control the boys. She secured for herself a place of vantage in the center of the room. When there was an instant’s lull in the uproar that the boys were making, as they took breath for more rowdyism, she said in a low, even tone of voice:

“There was once a little Indian boy who rode fifty miles on the cow-catcher of an engine.”

Then she waited and the boys waited, too, breathlessly eager for her next words. When she saw that she had caught the interest of her audience, she proceeded with the story in the same even, low voice, not so much telling the boys a story, apparently, but just telling a story, every sentence of which painted a word picture and the whole being a graphic series of moving pictures unrolled on a story film before her audience. She gave the story facts about the Indian lad who had never seen a locomotive and stole a daring ride on one because he thought it was a fire-horse. One by one the boys seated themselves quietly on the chairs or on the floor to listen. Several lay flat upon the floor, crawling stealthily nearer to the story teller as their interest in the story deepened. Throughout the entire telling of the story the room was absolutely still, and when the climax came the boys asked for another story. From that evening they were the Settlement’s stanch allies.

It would have been impossible to secure the voluntary attention of these boys. The fact that some one wanted to tell them a story would have probably inspired them to more lawlessness. If the story teller had begun the story after this fashion:—

“Fifty years ago there were few railways in the western part of our country. The prairies were peopled by Comanche tribes who were unfamiliar with the inventions of civilization, and the first train that ran through an Indian settlement inspired an Indian lad to a strange deed”—

Not a boy would have listened. This form of story beginning is bad and phenomenally common in many stories for children. It is an example of words, not interest stimuli. It explains a story situation instead of presenting it. A story to secure the involuntary attention of children should have the quality of a crashing orchestral overture, a thunder clap, a pistol shot—so unexpected, compelling, and penetrating will it be.

“There was once a little Indian boy who rode fifty miles on the cow-catcher of an engine!”

Could there be a more stimulating story beginning for a group of boys than this? There is an apperceptive appeal in the Indian lad. He was not a man, not a chieftain, but just a little lad like themselves. There is an immediate sense appeal in the steam-engine image that the story beginning brings to their minds. Smoke, smell, bell ringing, whistle blowing, steam escaping, and the rattle of iron wheels on iron tracks are all recalled to a boy’s mind in one glorious bit of imagination whose only stimulus is the word engine. Then, to clinch the apperceptive and sensory appeal of the sentence, is the quick introduction of a new story interest—the Indian boy did a deed that they, in their wildest dreams, had never considered—he rode an engine.

If a story, otherwise good, opens poorly—is too wordy, too descriptive, too pedantic—study the story carefully for its main interest and, selecting just the right words to convey this overture of interest, begin there. It will be discovered that certain of the classic, favorite tales of childhood fulfill this story test. They open compellingly and carry the interest that was stimulated in the first paragraph clear through to the end.

“There were once five and twenty tin soldiers who were all brothers, for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon.”

Hans Christian Andersen used the child’s instinctive love of counting his toys, and a bit of humor that tickles a child’s fancy, when he wrote this opening paragraph of his wonderful old allegory, “The Faithful Tin Soldier.”

“Once upon a time there lived a cat and a parrot and they thought they would ask each other to dinner, turn and turn about.”

This folk tale of “The Greedy Cat” opens with a strong sense appeal. The children’s interest aroused in the first sentence by means of the progressive dinner arrangement of the famous cat is sustained to the last word of the story.

“He was a wee little duck with a very long tail, so he was called Drakestail. Now Drakestail had some money of his very, very own and the King asked if he might take it. So Drakestail loaned all his money to the King—”

In this old folk tale, the gist of which is the merry adventures of a duck, the story interest begins with the first sentence. The children are introduced, with no unnecessary preliminaries of description or explanation to the hero, Drakestail, and then they are plunged into the story itself, interesting and direct in its appeal.

“Some children were at play in their playground one day, when a herald rode through the town, blowing a trumpet and crying aloud: ‘The King! The King is coming!’”

In this story, Laura E. Richards’ “Coming of the King,” to be found in her collection of short stories, “The Golden Windows,” a strong sense appeal commands the child’s involuntary attention at the beginning of the story. The familiar figures, children at play in their playground, are introduced to the sound of a trumpet’s call, instantly attracting the attention of the child listeners.

Once the story teller has learned story selection, having in mind a beginning that will hold the attention of her audience from her first word, her success will be secured. It is also possible to carry this interest which has been secured for the child the instant that the curtain rolls up, straight through to the end of the story, because of its compelling beginning. The opening paragraph of a child’s story should be the theme, tuned to the key and melody of child interest about which and on which the rest of the story plays. The noteworthy dinner of the cat and the mouse forms the keynote for the rest of the classic adventures of the Greedy Cat. The “wee little duck” and the avaricious old King whom we meet in the first paragraph are the main actors in the story drama of Drakestail. The playground of the children that we see in the first sentence of Mrs. Richards’ “The Coming of the King,” is the scene of a story miracle almost unparalleled in short story writing for children.

Cutting out unnecessary description, avoiding any explanation as to why you are telling the story, introducing your thunder clap, your trumpet, your story hero in the first sentence—this is the way to begin a story.

“The Prince’s Visit,” by Horace Scudder, is an excellent example of sustained story interest brought about by means of a compelling story opening.

The Prince’s Visit

It was a holiday in the city, for the Prince was to arrive. As soon as the cannon should sound, the people might know that the Prince had landed from the steamer, and when they should hear the bells ring that was as much as being told that the Prince, dressed splendidly, and wearing a feather in his cap, was actually on his way up the main street of the city, seated in a carriage drawn by four coal-black horses, and with the soldiers and music going on before.

It was holiday in the workshops, too, and little Job was listening for the cannon and the bells. He was only a poor, foolish little lad, and he did nothing all day long but turn the crank that worked a great washing machine; but when he heard the boom of the guns, he shuffled out and made his way home.

Ever since he had heard of the Prince’s coming, Job had dreamed of nothing else. He bought a picture of the Prince and pinned it up on the wall over his bed; and when he came home at night, tired and hungry, he would sit down by his mother, who mended holes in the laundry clothes, and talk about the Prince until he could keep his eyes open no longer; and then his mother would kiss him and send him to bed.

To-day he hurried so fast that he was quite out of breath when he reached the old house where he lived.

“The cannon went off, mother!” he cried. “The Prince is come!”

“Everything is ready, Job,” said his mother. “You will find all your things in a row on the bed.” And Job tumbled into his room to dress for the holiday. Everything was there as his mother had said; all the old things renewed, and all the new things pieced together that she had worked on so long, and every stitch of which Job had overlooked and almost directed.

“Isn’t it splendid?” he said as he looked at himself in a mirror. Round his throat was a white satin scarf that shone in contrast to his dingy coat, and it was pinned with an old brooch which Job treasured as the apple of his eye.

“If you’d only let me wear the feather, mother,” he said.

“You look splendidly, Job, and don’t need it,” said she cheerfully; “and, besides, the Prince wears one, and what would he think if he saw you with one, too?”

“Sure enough,” said Job, and then he kissed her and started off.

“I don’t believe,” he said as he went up the court, “that the Prince would mind my wearing a feather; but mother didn’t want me to. Hark, there are the bells! He must have started!”

It was a long way from Job’s house to the main street, and he would have to hurry if he were going to see the grand procession. On he shambled, knocking against the flag-stones, and nearly falling down at every step. He was now in a cross street, which would bring him before long to the main street, and he even thought he heard the distant music and the cheers of the crowd.

But just then he stumbled upon something which tripped him. He would have hurried on, but he heard a cry, and a groan of pain. He looked back, and he saw what he had stumbled over. It was a poor beggar boy, without home or friends, dirty and unsightly enough, and clad in ragged clothing, and he was lying on the sidewalk, too ill to move. As Job turned, the boy looked up at him and stretched out his hands, but he was too weak to speak.

“He is sick!” said Job. “Hilloa!” but every one was intent upon the procession, and no one heard him.

“The Prince is coming,” he said; and he turned as if to run. But the beggar would not away from his eyes.

“He is sick,” said Job again, bending down, “I will take him home to mother.”

“Hurrah! Hurrah! There he is! The Prince! The Prince!”

In the carriage drawn by four coal-black horses rode the Prince; and he was dressed in splendid clothes and he wore a feather in his cap.

Job wiped the tears from his eyes as he heard the music and the cheering so far away, but he lifted the little beggar boy in his arms—and started for home.

And as he passed along the street with his burden, he heard a sound of beautiful music as if all the angels were singing together, and he looked up into the blue sky above the chimneys and roofs of the city, and he saw the angels with the Prince in the midst of them moving by, and they were all smiling on him, poor, simple Job.

So Job saw the Prince pass, too.

Horace E. Scudder.

From “Dream Children.” Used by special permission of Houghton, Mifflin Company.

LIST OF STORIES IN WHICH THE STORY INTEREST IS TO BE FOUND IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH

CHAPTER IV
USING SUSPENSE TO DEVELOP CONCENTRATION

BECAUSE we have discovered that a story is able to do much for a child; make him feel comfortable and at home in a new environment because it brings to his mind so compellingly the well-known and loved surroundings of some former environment, stimulate his senses to added activity, and secure his involuntary attention, we are going one step farther. We will make a fresh discovery. We will find a story quality that will develop sustained attention in children; will give them the power to concentrate. Not only will our story open with such a clarion note of interest that it will compel involuntary attention but after this overture, this crash of interest, the perfect child’s story will swing into a different sort of construction that will hold the attention secured by its previous yellow headlines of interest.

One story quality more than any other develops this sustained interest on the part of the children who are listening to it—the quality of suspense.

What is suspense?

It is so necessary a story quality that it seems to explain itself. Suspense means, making the children wait for the rest of the story. It means that the different scenes, the events that go to make up the story, are told in the order of their relative interest appeal to the child mind. The child listens, attends involuntarily as the story proceeds because he wants to know what is coming next. Each scene of the story is unfinished for him; he must wait for a fulfillment of what he expects, looks for, longs for in the story. One sentence, one paragraph makes him curious to hear the following one. The story structure is like a child’s stringing of beads. Upon a white thread of interest the colored glass balls which go to make up the whole circlet of the story plot are strung, as a child would pick them out, each inadequate and incomplete without its component—one bead slipped down to make a place for the next one.

Suspense is the story quality that stimulates curiosity and in this way develops concentrated thinking on the part of the child.

Certain old folk stories have the quality of suspense developed to a high degree and through their accumulative, building on character of construction compel every child’s attention. It is wise to look for this quality in selecting stories to tell to the very young child whose ability to attend for any length of time is undeveloped. Through the involuntary, sustained interest he develops, through listening to the story he becomes able to fix his attention upon other human affairs. An old nursery tale of New England, reported by Clifton Johnson, illustrates with unusual vividness the use of suspense in sustaining a story interest that holds the attention of any child up to the last word of the story.

The Travels of a Fox

A fox was digging behind a stump, and he found a bumble-bee. The fox put the bumble-bee in a bag and he traveled.

The first house he came to he went in, and he said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

But as soon as the fox was out of sight, the woman just took a little peep into the bag and out flew the bumble-bee, and the rooster caught him and ate him up.

After a while the fox came back. He took up his bag and he saw that the bumble-bee was gone, and he said to the woman:

“Where is my bumble-bee?”

And the woman said:

“I just untied the bag, and the bumble-bee flew out, and the rooster ate him up.”

“Very well,” said the fox, “I must have the rooster, then.”

So he caught the rooster and put him in his bag, and traveled.

And the next house he came to he went in, and said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

But as soon as the fox was out of sight, the woman just took a little peep into the bag, and the rooster flew out, and the pig caught him and ate him up.

After a while the fox came back, and he took up his bag and he saw that the rooster was not in it, and he said to the woman: “Where is my rooster?”

And the woman said:

“I just untied the bag, and the rooster flew out, and the pig ate him.”

“Very well,” said the fox, “I must have the pig, then.”

So he caught the pig and put him in his bag, and traveled.

And the next house he came to he went in, and he said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

But as soon as the fox was out of sight, the woman just took a little peep into the bag, and the pig jumped out, and the ox ate him.

After a while the fox came back. He took up his bag and he saw that the pig was gone, and he said to the woman:

“Where is my pig?”

And the woman said:

“I just untied the bag, and the pig jumped out, and the ox ate him.”

“Very well,” said the fox, “I must have the ox, then.”

So he caught the ox and put him in his bag, and traveled.

And the next house he came to he went in, and he said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

But as soon as the fox was out of sight, the woman just took a little peep into the bag, and the ox got out, and the woman’s little boy chased him away off over the fields.

After a while the fox came back. He took up his bag, and he saw that the ox was gone, and he said to the woman:

“Where is my ox?”

And the woman said:

“I just untied the string, and the ox got out, and my little boy chased him away off over the fields.”

“Very well,” said the fox, “I must have the little boy, then.”

So he caught the little boy and he put him in his bag, and he traveled.

And the next house he came to he went in, and he said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

The woman was making cake, and her children were around her asking for some.

“Oh, mother, give me a piece,” said one; and, “Oh, mother, give me a piece,” said the others.

And the smell of the cake came to the little boy who was weeping and crying in the bag, and he heard the children asking for cake and he said: “Oh, mammy, give me a piece.”

Then the woman opened the bag and took the little boy out, and she put the house-dog in the bag in the little boy’s place. And the little boy stopped crying and had some cake with the others.

After a while the fox came back. He took up his bag and he saw that it was tied fast, and he put it over his back and traveled far into the deep woods. Then he sat down and untied the bag, and if the little boy had been there in the bag things would have gone badly with him.

But the little boy was safe in the woman’s house, and when the fox untied the bag the house-dog jumped out and ate him all up.

An old nursery tale of New England. Reprinted by permission of Clifton Johnson.

The point of interest for children in this story lies in their wonder as to what is going to happen next. It begins with a note of the unusual.

“How strange for a fox to put a bumble bee in a bag,” the children say. “Will the next sentence tell us why he did it?”

Then a number of questions present themselves to the child mind.

“Will the woman untie the bag?”

“Will the person at this house do the same thing?”

“Is it possible that every woman will open the bag?”

Another series of questions confronts the child.

“What manner of beast will the fox take at this house and put in his bag?”

And so the suspense is sustained until the children’s curiosity is satisfied at the end of the story. Not alone has the story been a bit of mental gymnastics for the child, it has given him added mental power in the listening. Above and behind the mental process of waiting to see what unusual and unexpected scene of the story drama will be presented to him next, he has been exercising his will in concentrating upon the process of waiting. His power of sustained attention has been strengthened materially and ineffaceably.

For the very young child, the suspensive element in story telling must be very simple. It will consist often in repetition, the pleasureable recurrence in the story of certain sounds that the child likes and is willing to wait for—sort of half way houses on the story road they are, where his mind wheels may stop and rest awhile—sign posts that lead the way to the end of the road. Sometimes this story suspense for the little folks is brought about through a jingle introduced into the story and repeated with certain changes as in the old folk tale of “The Cat and the Mouse.” Again suspense is brought about by means of a change of intonation on the part of the story teller. She adapts her voice to the needs of the story as in “The Three Bears” to the inexpressible delight of the children. This is a primitive sort of suspense quality to be found in the most elemental stories for children but it has its important place in the discipline of the child mind. The little child’s first attempts to attend have a butterfly quality. His mind flies from one stimulus to another with no very long stop anywhere. This is as it should be, for the world of sensations in which the child is plunged as an ego is a varied, crowded world and there is temptation offered him to sip each flower, smell each new odor, touch everything and see everything with which he comes in contact. But a suspensive story holds him to one related set of images for a brief space and through this concentration, however simple it may be, he is developing the power of willed attention.

As children grow older, the suspense quality for which we must look in their stories will not consist in repetition of sounds, jingles and phrases, but in their sequence of events leading toward some unknown climax. This is a more difficult and subtle form of suspense to secure. Here, the beads are strung upon their thread, not in groups of white interspersed with occasional red ones, but rather in the order of the rainbow in bands of color that complement and complete each other. Any description of this more highly developed suspensive story would be absolutely inadequate, for the quality has to be felt by the story teller first and then felt for by her.

An adapted version of the story of the first meeting of John Ridd and Lorna Doone taken from the novel, “Lorna Doone,” gives an illuminating exemplification of the kind of suspense that holds a child breathless, waiting for the unknown something that is to follow. The story teller should endeavor to discover and introduce some suspense, either elemental, as in the case of the folk tale, or of the more elusive quality, illustrated in this story, into all her stories.

Little Lorna Doone

Almost everybody knows how pleasant and soft the fall of land is round about Plover’s Barrows Farm. There are trees and bright green grass and orchards full of contentment, and you can scarce espy the brook, although you hear it everywhere. But it is there, where the valley bends and the stream goes along with it, and pretty meadows slope their breast, and the sun spreads on the water. And nearly all the land until you come to Nicholas Snow’s belonged to the Ridd farm—to little John Ridd’s father.

John’s mother had long been ailing and not well able to eat much. Now John chanced to remember that once at the time of the holidays he had brought his dear mother from Tiverton a jar of pickled loaches; and she had said that in all her life she had never tasted anything fit to be compared with them.

So, one St. Valentine’s Day, in the forenoon, without saying a word to any one, John started away to get some loaches for his mother just to make her eat a bit.

It was a bitter cold day, but John doffed his shoes and hose and put them in a bag about his neck, and left his little coat at home that he might walk better. When he had traveled two miles or so he found a good stream flowing softly into the body of the brook. The water was freezing, and John’s toes were aching, and he drew up on the bank and rubbed them well with a sprout of young sting-nettle, and having skipped about a little was inclined to eat a bit. As he ate, his spirits rose, so he put the bag round his neck again and buckled his breeches far up from the knee, and crossing the brook, went stoutly up under the branches which hung so dark on the Bagworthy River.

The day was falling fast behind the brown of the hilltops, and the trees seemed giants ready to beat the boy. And every moment as the sky was clearing up for a white frost, the cold of the water underfoot on the fells got worse and worse, until John was fit to cry with it. And so, in a sorry plight, he came to an opening in the bushes where a great black pool lay in front, whitened at the sides with foam froth.

The boy shuddered, and drew back, not at the pool itself, but at the whirling manner and wisping of white threads upon it in circles, round and round; and the center, black as jet. He did not stop to look much for fear, though, but crawled along over the fork of rocks where the water had scooped the stone out, and shunning the ledge from whence it rose like the mane of a white horse into the broad black pool, softly he let his feet slip into the dip and rush of the torrent.

But John had reckoned without his host, for the green waves came down like great bottles upon him, and his legs were gone from under him in a minute. He was borne up upon a rock, and he won a footing, but there was no choice left except to climb somehow up that hill of water or else be washed down into the pool and whirl around until it drowned him, for there was no chance of going back by the way he had come down. So John started carefully, step by step, stopping to hold on by the cliff when he found a resting place, and pant a while. But the greatest danger came when he saw no jeopardy, but ran up a patch of black ooze weed which stuck out in a boastful manner not far from the summit. Here he fell, and was like to have broken his knee cap, but his elbow caught in a hole in the rock and so he managed to start again.

But the little boy was in a most dreadful fright now, and at last the rush of water drove him back again into the middle. Then he made up his mind to die at last; only it did seem such a pity after fighting so long, to give in. The light was coming upon him, and again he fought toward it, when suddenly he felt fresh air, and fell into it headlong.

When John came to himself, his hands were full of young grass and mold, and a little girl was kneeling at his side and rubbing his forehead tenderly.

“I am so glad,” she whispered softly, as John opened his eyes and looked at her. “Now you will try to be better, won’t you?”

The little boy had never heard so sweet a sound as came from between her red lips while she knelt and gazed at him; nor had he ever seen anything so beautiful as the large dark eyes, full of pity and wonder. His eyes wandered down the black shower of her hair; and where it fell on the turf, among it, like an early star, was the first primrose of the season.

“What is your name?” she said, “and how did you come here? Oh, how your feet are bleeding! I must tie them up for you. And no shoes or stockings! Is your mother very poor, boy?”

“No,” said John, a little vexed. “We are rich enough to buy all this great meadow if we choose. Here are my shoes and stockings.”

“Why, they are quite as wet as your feet. Oh, please let me manage them. I will do it very softly.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that,” said John, “but how you are looking at me. I never saw any one like you before. My name is John Ridd. What is your name?”

“Lorna Doone,” she answered in a low voice as if afraid of it, and hanging her head so he could see only her forehead and eyelashes; “if you please, my name is Lorna Doone, and I thought you must have known it,” and her blushes turned to tears and her tears to long, low sobs.

“Don’t cry,” said John, “whatever you do. I will give you all my fish, Lorna, and catch some more for my mother; only don’t be angry with me.”

Young and harmless as she was, her name alone made guilt of her; yet there was John, a yeoman’s son, and there was she, a little lady born. Though her hair had fallen down, and some of her frock was touched with wet, behold, her dress was pretty enough for the queen of all the angels. All from her waist to her neck was white, plaited in close like a curtain, and the dark soft tresses of her hair, and the shadowy light of her eyes made it seem yet whiter.

“John,” she said, “why did you ever come here? Do you know what the robbers would do to us if they found you here with me?”

“Beat us, I dare say,” said John, “or me at least. They could never beat you.”

“No, they would kill us both, and bury us here by the water because you have found your way up here. Now please go; oh, please go!”

“I never saw any one like you, Lorna, and I must come back again to-morrow, and so must you. I will bring you such lots of things—there are apples still—and I caught a thrush—and I will bring you the loveliest dog—”

“Hush!”

A shout came down the valley, and Lorna’s face was full of terror.

“Do you see that hole?” she cried.

It was a niche in the rock which skirted the meadow. In the fading twilight John could just see it.

“Look! Look!” She could hardly speak from terror. “There is a way out from the top of it; they would kill me if I told of it. Oh, here they come; I can see them!”

The little maid turned white as the snow which hung on the rocks above her, and she looked at the water and then at John. She began to sob aloud, but John drew her behind the bushes and close down to the water. Crouching in that hollow nest they saw a dozen fierce men come down on the other side of the water.

“Queen! Queen!” they were shouting here and there, and now and then. “Where is our little queen gone?”

“They always call me ‘queen,’ and I shall have to be their queen by and by,” Lorna whispered. “Oh, they are crossing, and they are sure to see us.”

“I must get down into the water,” said John, “and you must go to sleep.”

She saw in a moment how to do it, and there was no time to lose.

“Now mind you, never come again,” she whispered over her shoulder as she crept away, “only I shall come sometimes.”

John crept into the water and lay down with his head between two blocks of stone, and all this time the robbers were shouting so that all the rocks round the valley rang. The boy was desperate between fear and wretchedness till he caught sight of the little maid, but he knew that for her sake he must be brave and hide himself.

Lorna was lying beneath a rock not far away, feigning to be fast asleep. Presently one of the robbers came upon her, and he stopped and gazed awhile at her fairness and innocence. Then he caught her up in his arms and kissed her.

“Here our queen is! Here’s the captain’s daughter,” he shouted, “fast asleep.”

He set her dainty little form upon his great square shoulder, and her narrow feet in one broad hand; and so he marched away with the purple velvet of her skirt ruffling his long black beard, and the silken length of her hair fetched out, like a cloud of the wind behind her.

John crept into a bush for warmth, and then, as daylight sank beneath the forget-me-not of stars, he knew that it was time to get away, and he managed to crawl from the bank to the niche in the cliff that Lorna had shown him. How he climbed up, and crossed the clearing, and found his way home across the Bagworthy forest was more than he could remember afterward, because of his weariness.

All the supper was in, and the men sitting at the white table with Annie and Lizzie near by—and all were eager to begin, save only the mother. John was of a mind to stay out in the dark by the woodstack, being so late, but the way his mother was looking out of the doorway got the better of him, so he went inside and ate his supper, and held his tongue as to where he had been all day and evening. But if he had been of a mind he could have told them many things.

Richard D. Blackmore.

Adapted.

Little In-a-Minute

ILLUSTRATING STORY SUSPENSE WHICH APPEALS TO YOUNGEST CHILDREN

The big, yellow Sun smiled down upon them and the Singing Brook hummed pretty little tunes for them to listen to. They were two little boys at play with a whole, long beautiful day ahead.

They looked almost exactly alike, did these two little boys. Bobby wore a wide-brimmed sun hat with a blue band around it, and Dicky wore a wide-brimmed sun hat with a red band around it. Bobby wore a brown linen sailor suit with blue anchors on the collar and Dicky wore a brown linen sailor suit with red anchors on the collar. Bobby had a beautiful toy ship to play with, and Dicky had a beautiful ship, too. As for the ships, they looked just exactly alike. Each beautiful toy ship was painted white and green, and each had a big white sail as wide and pretty as a dove’s wing, and each had a strong little rudder painted red.

Bobby and Dicky had made a make-believe wharf in the Singing Brook of sticks and stones and nice black mud. There, anchored at the wharf, lay the two beautiful toy boats, their white sails flapping and fat with wind. When their strings were loosed from the wharf, the Whispering Wind would carry the two little boats way, way down the Singing Brook to another little make-believe wharf made of sticks and stones and nice black mud that Bobby and Dicky had made farther on.

So the Sun smiled down more happily and the Singing Brook sang a merrier tune than the last one and Bobby and Dicky began to play.

“I am going to load my boat with little green apples, Dicky,” said Bobby. “Perhaps the Old Chipmunk who lives at the foot of the Pine Tree will go aboard and unload them.”

Bobby began gathering small green apples as fast as he could and putting them on the deck of his little ship, but Dicky sat on the bank of the Singing Brook, doing nothing and only watching.

“When are you going to load your ship, Dicky?” Bobby asked as he put in the last apples.

“In a minute,” Dicky answered, but before the minute had gone, Bobby’s ship, its white sail flying, had started down the Singing Brook to the other wharf. Dicky jumped up and loosed his boat from its moorings, but it was very far behind Bobby’s all the way. The two little boys hurried softly between the willow trees that stood along the edge of the Singing Brook. As they came to the other make-believe wharf they saw the Old Chipmunk creep out of his house at the foot of the Pine Tree and go out on the wharf to wait for the little ship to come in. When it came, he unloaded all the cargo of apples and carried them over to his cellar. But when Dicky’s ship came in, so late and so empty, the Old Chipmunk did nothing but smell of it. Then he sat on the end of the make-believe wharf in the sunshine and basked and did not even look at Dicky’s ship again.

“I have thought of something very nice to do, now,” said Bobby as the two little boys carried their ships back again. “We will play that the flowers are children and we will give them a ride in our ships.”

“Yes, we will!” agreed Dicky.

So Bobby picked many little flower children; clovers in pink bonnets and buttercups in wide yellow hats and daisies in gold bonnets with white strings, and he put them all carefully aboard his ship. But Dicky only stood by in the grass and watched.

“When are you going to fill your boat with flowers, Dicky?” Bobby asked as he helped the last flower child aboard.

“In a minute,” Dicky answered, but just then down the Singing Brook came the Whispering Wind. It filled the little white sails and away sailed the two little ships, the flower children aboard Bobby’s fluttering and dancing with the joy of having a boat ride.

The two little boys raced along the bank to watch and they saw a wonderful thing happen. All the way down the Singing Brook, pretty passengers joined the flower children on board Bobby’s ship. A gold butterfly fluttered down to the deck with his yellow and black wings, kissing the clovers beneath their pink bonnets. A shiny black bumble bee tumbled down to the deck with his gold, gossamer wings and began to drone summer stories to the buttercups. A silver dragon fly darted down to the ship with his rainbow tinted wings to mend the white strings of the daisies’ caps which had been torn by the frolicsome Whispering Wind. When Bobby’s ship reached the other wharf it looked like an excursion boat, but, ah, Dicky’s ship was quite empty. There had been no flower children on board to call the butterflies, the bumble bees and the dragon flies.

“I know the nicest play of all, now,” said Bobby after he had helped the flower children from his ship and put their feet in the Singing Brook that they might wade there all the rest of the day and keep cool and fresh and sweet.

“We will take our ships back, Dicky, and have a race.”

“Oh, that will be nice!” Dicky answered, so the two little boys carried the two ships back and launched them, side by side, in the Singing Brook.

“One—two—” began Bobby, but before he said three he heard their mother’s voice floating over the fields and as far as their playground.

“Bobby, Dicky, come home,” their mother called. “Come home, boys, dinner is ready.”

“I’m coming, mother,” Bobby called back, putting his hand to his mouth to make a horn. Then he turned to Dicky who still bent low over the bank of the Singing Brook and still held in his hand the string that was tied to the rudder of his ship.

“In a minute,” Dicky answered. Bobby ran off over the fields, and soon he was out of sight. He knew that there were fat white potatoes and yellow chicken meat and red cherry dumplings for dinner. Now they were hot, but they would be cold if he did not hurry.

Down by the Singing Brook Dicky waited to launch his ship once more. The Whispering Wind filled the sail a third time, and away sailed the beautiful little toy ship, so pretty with its green and white paint, and its rudder that was painted red. Dicky ran along beside it, to see how fast it sailed. Faster and faster sailed Dicky’s ship. It did not stop when it came to the Pine Tree where the Old Chipmunk was busy in his cellar sorting out his apples. It did not stop when it came to the Wading Pool where all the flower children stood, keeping cool and fresh and sweet. On and on sailed the little ship, for the Whispering Wind was taking it a long, long way off to the place where the Singing Brook loses itself in the River and the River goes on down to the Sea.

“Come back. Oh, do come back!” called Dicky to the little ship, but the ship only sailed the faster.

“Please come back!” cried Dicky as his beautiful ship sailed out of sight.

In a minute, the Whispering Wind called back.

But the little ship never came back.

So Dicky went slowly across the field and home to dinner, but when he reached home what do you think had happened?

The fat, white potatoes, the yellow chicken meat and the red cherry dumplings were cold.

Carolyn Sherwin Bailey.

STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF THEIR SUSPENSIVE QUALITY

CHAPTER V
STORY CLIMAX

WE have found it helpful to liken the effect that a well-written, well-told story has upon a child’s mind to the appeal that a successful drama makes to an audience. We have discovered that the opening paragraph, the first sentence of a child’s story should have the quality that characterizes the scene disclosed on the stage when the curtain rolls up—compelling interest. Following this curtain raising of the story, there should be a series of pictorial scenes that carry the events that go to make up the story plot, strung upon a slender thread of curiosity, and giving the element of suspense to the story.

Following out this story structure we come, eventually, to the end. The curtain must fall at last before the eyes of the child audience and the closing of the story drama should be as mind stimulating as was its beginning. This is brought about by studying carefully the story climax.

The climax of a story should be a complete surprise to the listener and to the characters in the story, as well.

This quick note of the unexpected coming with compelling suddenness at the end of our story clinches the interest of the plot and makes the story indelible on the child’s mind sheet.

Certain well-known instances of climax as exemplified in child stories will clarify for us its surprise quality.

In one of the older plantation folk tales, Mr. Elephant and Mr. Frog are pictured as being good friends until Mr. Hare taunts them with their dissimilarity in size and says that Mr. Frog has boasted of the fact that Mr. Elephant is his “riding horse.” Then the story continues:

“Mr. Fox and Mr. Tiger and Mr. Lion all followed after Mr. Hare, crying: ‘Oho, oho, Mr. Elephant is little Mr. Frog’s riding horse.’

“Then Mr. Elephant turned around and he said in a very gruff voice to Mr. Frog:

“‘Did you tell them, grandson, that I was your horse?’

“And Mr. Frog said in a high, squeaky voice:—

“‘No, no, grandfather.’

“But all the time Mr. Frog was thinking of a trick to play on Mr. Elephant.

“The next day, Mr. Elephant and Mr. Frog started off for a long walk. Mr. Frog had heard of a place where the swamps were deep and muddy. Mr. Elephant knew a place where the bananas grew ripe and thick. And they spent a pleasant day. On the way home Mr. Frog hopped up close to Mr. Elephant, and he said in his high, squeaky voice:—

“‘Grandfather, I have no strength to walk. Let me get up on your back.’

“‘Climb up, my grandson,’ said Mr. Elephant.

“He put his trunk down for a ladder, and Mr. Frog climbed up. They had not gone very far when Mr. Frog hopped up close to Mr. Elephant’s ear, and he said:—

“‘I am going to fall, grandfather. Give me some small cords from the roadside that I may bind your mouth, and hold myself upon your back.’

“‘I will, grandson,’ said Mr. Elephant.

“So Mr. Elephant stripped some small cords from a birch tree by the roadside, and handed them to Mr. Frog. Then Mr. Frog bound Mr. Elephant’s mouth, and they went on a little farther. It was not long, though, before Mr. Frog spoke again to Mr. Elephant.

“‘Grandfather,’ he said, ‘find me a small green twig that I may fan the mosquitoes from your ears.’

“‘I will, grandson,’ said Mr. Elephant, so he broke a small, green twig from the birch tree, and reached it up to Mr. Frog; and just then they came toward home.

“‘See Mr. Elephant,’ cried Mr. Hare.

“‘See Mr. Elephant,’ cried Mr. Tiger.

“‘See Mr. Elephant,’ cried Mr. Lion, and all the others, ‘Mr. Elephant is Mr. Frog’s horse.’

“Mr. Elephant turned himself about, and he saw Mr. Frog on his back, holding the reins and the whip.

“‘Why, so I am, grandson,’ said Mr. Elephant.

“Then Mr. Frog jumped down to the ground, and he laughed and he laughed until he nearly split his coat, because he had played a trick on Mr. Elephant.”

This quotation serves very well to illustrate perfect story climax. In the beginning of the story, an apparently impossible situation was suggested. To the child listener it seems incredible that an elephant could so far forget his dignity as to serve as the steed of a frog. To the elephant himself, as well, this situation appears to be incompatible with his social status in the jungle. As the story advances, each scene prepares a way for the unexpected dénouement and the climax is found in the surprise to the hearers and to Mr. Elephant as well when the curtain falls upon him unwittingly playing the part of “riding horse” to little Mr. Frog.

Hans Christian Andersen’s inimitable allegory of “The Ugly Duckling” owes a measure, at least, of its popularity to its perfect climax. In the beautiful word pictures of the story we follow its hero, the Ugly Duckling, through his series of perilous and sorrowful adventures, sympathizing with but not anticipating the outcome of them. In no single one of the scenes of the story do we have a hint of the glorious ending of the hero’s journeying. Finally comes a quick, artistic curtain falling:

—“Then he flew toward the beautiful swans. As soon as they saw him they rushed to meet him with outstretched wings.

“‘Kill me!’ said the Ugly Duckling; but as he bent his head, what did he see reflected in the water? It was his own image—not a dark, gray bird, ugly to see—but a graceful swan.

“Then the great swans swam around him and stroked his neck with their beaks for a welcome. Some little children came into the garden.

“‘See,’ they cried, clapping their hands.

“‘A new swan has come and he is more beautiful than the others!’”—

This story climax is perfect, also, because it carries the element of surprise to the story hearers and the story hero, the Ugly Duckling, as well.

It seems to be almost impossible to find many instances of well constructed climax in the short story for children. The story teller must look for climax and in the event of not being able to find it in the story that she selects for telling, it will be necessary for her to make over her story ending that it may be a complete surprise to her listeners, in this way strengthening the plot greatly. Many stories just stop, giving one a feeling of dissatisfaction. There has been no climax to make of the whole a finished picture, complete in its minutest detail of light and shade and forming an unerasable vignette, on the child’s mind.

Climax knots the thread of the narrative.

Certain child stories, however, stand out as illuminating instances of what climax means in deepening the mental appeal for the child, etching the story picture, so to speak. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Great Stone Face,” forms one instance. A careful reading of the story will disclose Hawthorne’s subtle use of suspense, the art of “making his audience wait” for his dénouement. He makes us see the fertile valley beneath the great mountain upon whose side there had been sculptured by Nature, the wonderful stone face. We are carried, breathlessly, along upon the tide of the narrative through the boy Ernest’s longing to bear the image of these beautiful features, the futile attempts of old Gathergold, old Blood-and-Thunder and the others to prove their likeness to the Great Stone Face until we reach our climax in Ernest’s own transformation into the great likeness unsuspected by himself or by us.

It seems to be the great short story writers, only, who have given us really illuminating instances of climax—surprise ending—in stories that will appeal to children in a stimulating way. In Hawthorne’s “Snow Image” the curtain falls upon a surprise situation. Oscar Wilde leaves us unconsolable at his apparent ending of “The Happy Prince.” The little swallow is dead and the Prince has given away his gold and jewels.

“So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince who was no longer beautiful and so no longer useful and they melted the statue in the furnace.

“‘What a strange thing!’ said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. ‘This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away!’

“So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead swallow was also lying.”

But as we hold our breath, the climax is flung gloriously out.

“‘Bring me the two most precious things in the City,’ said God to one of His Angels and the Angel brought him the leaden heart and the dead bird.

“‘You have rightly chosen,’ said God, ‘for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.’”

In the story of Cosette and her doll in “Les Misérables,” Victor Hugo has given us a complete story vignette with a perfectly developed climax of surprise as Jean Valjean gives to Cosette, the “toad” of Madame Thenardier’s Kitchen, the doll about which she had dreamed. Laura Richard’s short stories for children abound in instances of illuminating climax—no hint of the story ending being given until the curtain falls. Her story of “The Golden Windows” in which a little boy sets out upon a journey to find the windows of gold that he sees beyond the village from his own poor little home and discovers at the end of the day that his own home windows, viewed from a distance are gold and those he has found are gray and dull, is an example of Mrs. Richards’ skilled use of climax to force her story point into the child’s mind.

The mental appeal of climax is a very real and vital one for the consideration of the story teller. Once we fix in our minds the two characteristics of artistic story ending, surprise to the story characters and to the children, and an ending that ties the knot of the narrative, our story curtain will fall, leaving the children a lap farther along in their mental development than they were when the curtain rose.

Old Man Rabbit’s Thanksgiving Dinner

ILLUSTRATING STORY CLIMAX WHICH APPEALS TO YOUNGEST CHILDREN

Old Man Rabbit sat at the door of his little house eating a nice, ripe, juicy turnip. It was a cold, frosty day, but Old Man Rabbit was all wrapped up, round and round and round, with yards and yards and yards of his best red wool muffler so he didn’t care if the wind whistled through his whiskers and blew his ears up straight. Old Man Rabbit had been exercising, too, and that was another reason why he was so nice and warm.

Early in the morning he had started off, lippity, clippity down the little brown path that lay in front of his house and led to Farmer Dwyer’s corn patch. The path was all covered with shiny red leaves. Old Man Rabbit scuffled through them and he carried a great big bag over his back. In the corn patch he found two or three fat, red ears of corn that Farmer Dwyer had missed so he dropped them into his bag. A little farther along he found some purple turnips and some yellow carrots and quite a few russet apples that Farmer Dwyer had arranged in little piles in the orchard. Old Man Rabbit went in the barn, squeezing under the big front door by making himself very flat, and he filled all the chinks in his bag with potatoes and he took a couple of eggs in his paws, for he thought that he might want to stir up a little pudding for himself before the day was over.

Then Old Man Rabbit started off home again down the little brown path, his mouth watering every time his bag bumped against his back and not meeting any one on the way because it was so very, very early in the morning. When he came to his little house he emptied his bag and arranged all his harvest in piles in his front room; the corn in one pile, and the carrots in one pile, the turnips in another pile, and the apples and potatoes in the last pile. He beat up his eggs and stirred some flour with them and filled it full of currants to make a pudding. And when he had put his pudding in a bag and set it boiling on the stove, he went outside to sit awhile and eat a turnip, thinking all the time what a mighty fine old rabbit he was and so clever, too.

Well, while Old Man Rabbit was sitting there in front of his little house, wrapped up in his red muffler and munching the turnip, he heard a little noise in the leaves. It was Billy Chipmunk traveling home to the stone wall where he lived. He was hurrying and blowing on his paws to keep them warm.

“Good morning, Billy Chipmunk,” said Old Man Rabbit. “Why are you running so fast?”

“Because I am cold, and I am hungry,” answered Billy Chipmunk. “It’s going to be a hard winter, a very hard winter—no apples left. I’ve been looking all the morning for an apple and I couldn’t find one.”

And with that, Billy Chipmunk went chattering by, his fur standing out straight in the wind.

No sooner had he passed than Old Man Rabbit saw Molly Mouse creeping along through the little brown path, her long gray tail rustling the red leaves as she went.

“Good morning, Molly Mouse,” said Old Man Rabbit.

“Good morning,” answered Molly Mouse in a wee little voice.

“You look a little unhappy,” said Old Man Rabbit, taking another bite of his turnip.

“I have been looking and looking for an ear of corn,” said Molly Mouse in a sad little chirping voice. “But the corn has all been harvested. It’s going to be a very hard winter, a very hard winter.”

And Molly Mouse trotted by out of sight.

Pretty soon, Old Man Rabbit heard somebody else coming along by his house. This time it was Tommy Chickadee hopping by and making a great to-do, chattering and scolding as he came.

“Good morning, Tommy Chickadee,” said Old Man Rabbit.

But Tommy Chickadee was too much put out about something to remember his manners. He just chirped and scolded, because he was cold and he couldn’t find a single crumb or a berry or anything at all to eat. Then he flew away, his feathers puffed out with the cold until he looked like a little round ball, and all the way he chattered and scolded more and more.

Old Man Rabbit finished his turnip, eating every single bit of it, even to the leaves. Then he went in his house to poke the fire in his stove and to see how the pudding was cooking. It was doing very well indeed, bumping against the pot as it bubbled and boiled, and smelling very fine indeed. Old Man Rabbit looked around his house at the corn and the carrots and the turnips and the apples and the potatoes and then he had an idea. It was a very funny idea indeed, different from any other idea Old Man Rabbit had ever had before in all his life. It made him scratch his head with his left hind foot, and think and wonder, but it pleased him, too; it was such a very funny idea.

First he took off his muffler and then he put on his gingham apron. He took his best red table-cloth from the drawer and put it on his table and then he set the table with his gold banded china dinner set. By the time he had done all this, the pudding was boiled, so he lifted it, all sweet and steaming, from the kettle and set it in the middle of the table. Around the pudding, Old Man Rabbit piled heaps and heaps of corn and carrots and turnips and apples and potatoes, and then he took down his dinner bell that was all rusty because Old Man Rabbit had very seldom rung it before, and he stood in his front door and he rang it very hard, calling in a loud voice.

“Dinner’s ready! Come to dinner, Billy Chipmunk, and Molly Mouse, and Tommy Chickadee!”

They all came, and they brought their friends with them. Tommy Chickadee brought Rusty Robin who had a broken wing and had not been able to fly South for the winter. Billy Chipmunk brought Chatter-Chee, a lame squirrel, whom he had invited to share his hole for a few months, and Molly Mouse brought a young gentleman Field Mouse, who was very distinguished looking because of his long whiskers. When they all tumbled into Old Man Rabbit’s house and saw the table with the pudding in the center they forgot their manners and began eating as fast as they could, every one of them.

It kept Old Man Rabbit very busy waiting on them. He gave all the currants from the pudding to Tommy Chickadee and Rusty Robin. He selected juicy turnips for Molly Mouse and her friend, and the largest apples for Billy Chipmunk. Old Man Rabbit was so busy that he didn’t have any time to eat a bite of dinner himself, but he didn’t mind that, not one single bit. It made him feel so warm and full inside just to see the others eating.

When the dinner was over and not one single crumb was left on the table, Tommy Chickadee hopped up on the back of his chair and chirped.

“Three cheers for Old Man Rabbit’s Thanksgiving dinner!”

“Hurrah, Hurrah,” they all twittered and chirped and chattered. And Old Man Rabbit was so surprised that he didn’t get over it for a week. You see he had really given a Thanksgiving dinner without knowing that it really and truly was Thanksgiving Day.

Carolyn Sherwin Bailey.

The Great Stone Face

You had only to lift your eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.

What was the Great Stone Face?

It seemed as if an enormous giant had sculptured his own likeness on a mountain side. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken would have rolled in thunder from one end of the valley to the other. True it was that if you came too near, you lost the outline of the Face and could see only a heap of ponderous rocks, but when you retraced your steps, the wondrous features could be seen again, and the people who lived below it believed that their valley was so fertile because the Great Stone Face looked down upon it lighting up the clouds, and giving tenderness to the sunshine.

Now there was a little boy named Ernest who lived in the valley, and his mother had told him a story that her mother had told to her; a story so very old that even the Indians did not know who had first told it, unless it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the tree tops. This was the story—that, sometime, a child should be born who would become the greatest and noblest person of his time, and his face, in manhood, should be the exact likeness of the Great Stone Face. But though the people had watched and waited until they were weary, no man greater and nobler than his neighbors had they yet beheld.

“Oh, mother, dear mother!” cried Ernest. “I do hope I shall live to see him.”

“Perhaps you may,” said his mother doubtfully.

And Ernest never forgot the story. It was always in his mind whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He grew up in the log cottage, and was dutiful to his mother, and helped her with his little hands and more with his loving heart. From a lad he became a quiet youth, sunbrowned from work in the fields, and well learned, though he never had any teacher except that Great Stone Face which smiled down upon him at night when his work was done.

About this time there went a rumor through the valley that the great man who was to bear a resemblance to the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. His name was Gathergold, and he was a very rich merchant and owned a whole fleet of ships. All the countries of the world had added to his wealth. The cold regions of the North had sent him furs; hot Africa had gathered the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the forests; the East had brought him spices and teas and diamonds and pearls. Mr. Gathergold had become so very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years to count his money so he decided to go back and end his days in the valley where he was born.

He ordered a wonderful palace of marble so dazzlingly white that it seemed as if it would melt in the sunshine. When the mansion was done, the upholsterers came with magnificent furniture, and then a whole troop of black and white servants who said that Mr. Gathergold would arrive at sunset.

“Here he comes,” cried the people who were waiting to see him. “Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!”

A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road. Within it sat a little old man with a skin as yellow as his own gold.

“The very image of the Great Stone Face!” shouted the people, but Ernest, who had been watching, too, turned sadly and looked up the valley, where, in the gathering mist, he could see the wonderful Face, and the lips seemed to say:

“He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come.”

The years went on, and Ernest was a young man, still good, and true, and kind. Poor Mr. Gathergold died and was buried, and the oddest part of the matter was that his wealth all disappeared before he died, leaving nothing of him but a skeleton covered with a wrinkled yellow skin; and every one decided that he had never borne the slightest resemblance to the Great Stone Face.

Then a warworn veteran, who had won great honors on the battlefield and was named Old Blood-and-Thunder decided to come back to the valley where he had been born. His neighbors resolved to welcome him with a salute of cannon and a public dinner, for they were all quite sure Old Blood-and-Thunder would bear the likeness of the Great Stone Face.

On the day of his arrival Ernest and all the others left their work and went out to meet Old-Blood-and-Thunder.

“’Tis the same face, to a hair!” cried one man.

“Wonderfully like,” cried another.

Then Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the crowd with glittering epaulets and an embroidered collar and there, too, through the vista of the forest appeared the Great Stone Face.

“This is not he,” thought Ernest.

More years passed. Ernest was now an older man. He still laboured for his bread, but he had done so much for his neighbors that it seemed as if he had been talking with the angels and had gotten a portion of their wisdom unawares.

The people of the Valley had found out—after a while—that Old Blood-and-Thunder’s face had not the gentleness of the Great Stone Face and now they said, again, that its likeness was to appear upon the broad shoulders of a great statesman.

Old Stony Phiz, he was called, and while his friends were doing their best to make him President, he set out on a visit to the valley where he had been born.

Ernest and all the others went out to meet him. A cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a clattering of hoofs. There was a band of music, and while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting, an open barouche came by, drawn by four black horses. Inside with his massive head uncovered sat the great statesman, Old Stony Phiz, himself.

“Confess it,” cried some one to Ernest. “The Great Stone Face has met its equal.”

But Ernest turned away disappointed. The eyes and brow of the great man had none of the nobleness of the Face on the mountain side.

And Ernest grew to be an old man, but a strange thing happened. He was no longer an obscure husbandman. Men from the cities began coming to see him to learn from him the things that he had learned from the Great Stone Face, things not put down in books, and he was suddenly become famous.

One day a great Poet came to the Valley and stopped at Ernest’s cottage to ask shelter for the night.

It was Ernest’s custom each evening to talk to the assemblage of neighbors in a small nook among the hills near his cottage. To this spot he and the Poet went at sunset. All about was the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants, while Ernest’s friends sat in the grove at his feet and in another direction could be seen the Great Stone Face with heavy mists about it, like the white leaves around the brow of Ernest.

At that moment Ernest’s face, as he began to speak, grew wonderfully grand, and the Poet threw his arms aloft and shouted,

“Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face.”

Then all the people looked and saw that what the poet said was true. The prophecy was fulfilled.

Through the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works.

STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE EACH HAS A WELL-DEVELOPED CLIMAX

CHAPTER VI
TRAINING A CHILD’S MEMORY BY MEANS OF A STORY

IN the first place, what is the mental process by means of which we recall something stored in the cedar and lavender of our mind chests?

As you pass along a crowded city thoroughfare you are suddenly and unexpectedly confronted by an old friend. She steps out of a crowd of strangers and faces you. You recognize her at once as a bit of long-ago, changed with the years a bit but still, in a measure, familiar. You are unable though, for an instant’s space, to recall your friend’s name. In that instant’s pause, however, a mental miracle takes place illuminating for us the process by means of which the human mind brings about a recall of an idea.

You clasp your friend’s hand. You look deep into her eyes. You note a similar perfume permeating her clothing that you knew in former years. She speaks to you, and you recognize the old, familiar quality of tone in her voice. Then the miracle happens, and your friend’s name finds its way to your lips. It is Mrs. B——. You had not really forgotten Mrs. B’s name. It had been stored away in a cobweb-hung corner of your mind together with its mental associates; the touch memories of her hand clasp, the odor memory of her perfume, the sound memory of her voice. As you again experience these touch, odor and sound stimuli, Mrs. B’s name rises in their wake like a phœnix long buried in the ashes of forgetfulness.

Memory is a process of association of ideas. Not repetition of an idea, but surrounding it with a host of witnesses gives it permanency in the mind.

To a greater extent than can possibly be estimated does this associative quality of memory hold in the case of children. We wish to teach a kindergarten child that a certain type of flower is known as a rose. We do not repeat to him over and over again, or ask him to repeat to us, in order to fix this fact in his mind—“This is a rose. This is a rose.” Instead, we ask him to smell of the flower, note its color, the shape of its petals, its peculiar, thorny stem, its leaves. We help the child to draw a picture of a rose. We ask him to show us all the roses he can find as we take him to walk in the garden. Then, when the child has the flower’s color, odor, feeling, form and garden environment as a crowd of mind witnesses to prove its individuality, we say “This is a rose,” and the child is very apt to remember the flower.

A well-constructed child’s story has the associative quality that characterizes the mental process of memorizing. It has one central theme; an act of heroism, a nature fact, a bit of natural history, a note of the fantastic or the humorous and around this central theme are grouped the story associates; the dialogue, the description, the sensory elements, the surprise of the climax, all of which fix indelibly in the mind this central theme around which the story is written.

Every well told story means an added possibility of a recall in the child’s mind and strengthens the general process of memory.

Laura Richards’ story of “The Pig Brother” illustrates the type of story for which the story teller should search in order to train a child’s memory. The theme of the story, the idea that is to be made a fixture in the child’s mind, is that of the value of cleanliness, and order in life. The treatment of the theme is constructive, a process of building up scenes and blocking out unessentials to strengthen and make permanent the theme in the child’s mind.

“There was once a child who was untidy,” the story begins.

With no wasting of time over details the child who hears the story is introduced to the theme. There follows a bit of description explaining the kind of untidiness of the little story hero, how he left his toys and boots scattered about his play-room, spilled ink and covered his pinafore with jam. Then the child is confronted by the Tidy Angel who tells him to go out in the garden and play with his brother while she puts his nursery back into its former state of orderliness. The child goes out to the garden but he is in a condition of wonder in regard to this brother whom he is to seek. He meets a squirrel in the garden path, and he asks it if it is his brother, but the squirrel denies all relationship to the child because of his untidiness. Then the child meets a wren, and asks it the same question, which the bird also indignantly denies because of the child’s untidy appearance. The child then interrogates the Tommy Cat who scorns all thought of relationship to him, telling him to go and look at himself in a mirror. The climax of the story is found when the child meets a pig who promptly claims relationship with him and causes the child to go back to his play-room resolved to be tidy and orderly in the future.

The story has a memory value for children because it presents one idea with a number of related associates. The story theme of the unpleasant results of being untidy is never lost sight of, but is presented over and over again in a series of related scenes so differentiated, however, by their contrast as to make them permanent in the child’s mind. We may take these different scenes in the order in which the author presents them, discovering that each forms a stone in the whole structure, differing in their value but all taking form and color from one theme.

Scene 1. The child hero is banished from his play-room and his toys as a result of his own acts.

Scene 2. The child finds that he has no part in the outside world of little wild creatures, also because of his untidy habits.

Scene 3. For the same self-inflicted reason, he is disowned by his friends, the birds.

Scene 4. His house friend, the cat, disowns him because his habits of personal cleanliness do not accord with her standards.

Scene 5. The child finds the natural consequence of his untidiness in his welcome by the despised pig which brings about his resolve to be clean and orderly, hereafter.

Each story scene, as shown in this analysis is carefully planned, having in mind a grouping of associated ideas that will strengthen and vivify the image made on the child’s mind by the story theme. As a result the child who has heard the story of “The Pig Brother” has gained a store of associated ideas that will be recalled when some one asks him to pick up his toys or use care in eating. He will remember that squirrels and birds are orderly in their nest making, that his cat uses care in regard to her person, that there is a big, unseen force at work in the world that makes for order—whether one calls it an Angel, or not, it really exists—and he remembers that a disregard of this law of order means disaster to the law breaker. The child of the story escaped from the Pig. He may not be so fortunate if he breaks the law. So our real child turns over and examines and sorts and weighs his mental associates of the concept untidiness, and makes his own decision in the negative in a way that would not have been possible without the carefully associated scenes of the story.

This may seem an over fine analysis of one story but it will help us in judging other child stories having a regard to their memory value for the child.

Almost, if not more important a consideration than the writing of a drama, is the matter of the stage “business” in its successful production. The manager must decide which movements of his actors, which exits and entrances, which stage arrangement, lighting and what scheme of costuming will strengthen the salient idea underlying the plot of the drama and make it a memory in the minds of the audience. Stage “business” is a matter of psychology. It means that the stage manager, the playwright or whoever knows the audience best is going to plan a mechanical background, a hedge, a wall, of associates that will make the audience remember the play. A good story should have “business,” the necessary costuming and lighting.

How shall the story teller apply this memory test in her selection of stories? How shall she be able to say with authority:

“My children will not forget this story!”

In the first place we should assure ourselves to our complete satisfaction in selecting a story that it has a theme, a motif upon which we can build the chords of a complete melody. It is doubtful if the story of “The Greedy Cat” has a sufficient theme to make it of value as a memory story, although it has a very real place in the child’s life as a relaxing bit of nonsense. “The Little Pine Tree That Wished New Leaves” has a well defined theme—that of contentment.

The second question that we will ask ourselves will be, is this story theme a worth while one for us to give the children as a permanent part of their mental lives? We would hardly wish a child to remember always about the greed of the gormandizing cat. We would be glad to have him hang up in his mind house a picture of content as illustrated by the little green tree that discovered his own leaves to be better than any others.

Last, we will ask, is the story theme so compellingly associated with other ideas that it will become a memory for the child? In the case of the story of the Little Pine Tree, this treatment is carefully adhered to. Never is the leaf idea lost. Instead, the idea is presented in the form of gold leaves, leaves of glass, in fact all the strange and different leaves for which the discontented tree wished. But the gold leaves are stolen by a miser; the glass leaves are broken in a storm, and its juicy large leaves are all eaten by a goat. The climax is reached when the little tree is glad to have back its slender green needles; and the story is fixed in a child’s mind because of its associative treatment.

This memory training by means of story telling is a legitimate “short cut” in teaching. The nature fact, that difficult bit of geography, that fine point of ethics may all be given a permanent place in the child’s mind if we can find just the right story to help in fixing them. The list of stories that follows at the end of this chapter was selected having in mind in the case of each story, its associative treatment of one theme worth while as a memory for the child. Hans Andersen’s story of Little Tuk is a brilliant example of using associated ideas to set the memory gem of the plot.

Little Tuk

Now there was little Tuk. As a matter of fact his name was not Tuk at all, but before he could speak properly he called himself Tuk. He meant it for Carl, so it is just as well we should know that. He had to look after his sister Gustave who was much smaller than he was, and then he had his lessons to do, but these two things were rather difficult to manage at the same time.

The poor little boy sat with his little sister in his lap, at the same time looking at his open geography book which he held in front of him. Before school time the next morning he had to know the names of all the towns by heart and everything there was to know about them.

At last his mother came home, for she had been out, and she took little Gustave. Tuk ran to the window and read as hard as he could, for it was growing dark fast, and his mother could not afford to buy candles.

“There’s the old washerwoman from the lane,” his mother said as she looked out of the window. “She can hardly carry herself, and yet she has to carry the pail from the pump. Run down, little Tuk, and be a dear boy. Help the old woman!”

Tuk jumped up at once and ran to help her, but when he got home again it was quite dark and it was useless to talk about candles. He had to go to bed. He had an old turn-up bed, and he lay in it, thinking about his geography lesson, the Island of Zealand, and all his teacher had told him about it. He ought to have been learning the lesson, but of course, he could not do that now. He put the geography book under his pillow and he lay there thinking, and thinking—and then all at once it seemed just as if some one had kissed him on his eyes and nose and mouth, and he fell asleep.

Yet he was not quite asleep either. It seemed to him as if the old washerwoman were looking at him with her kind eyes and saying,

“It would be a great shame if you were not to know your lesson. You helped me, and now I will help you.”

And all at once the book under his head went “cribble, crabble.”

“Cluck, cluck, cluck!” There stood a hen from the town of Kiöge.

“I am a Kiöge hen,” it said, and then it went on to tell him how many inhabitants there were, and about the battle which had taken place there.

“Cribble, crabble, bang!” something plumped down; it was a wooden bird, the popinjay from Præstö. It told him that there were just as many inhabitants in Præstö as it had nails in its body, and it was very proud of this.

Now little Tuk no longer lay in bed. Gallop-a-gallop he went. He was sitting in front of a splendidly dressed knight with a shining helmet and a waving plume. They rode through the woods to the old town of Vordingborg, a very large and prosperous town. The castle towered above the royal city, and lights shone through the windows. There were songs and dancing within and the king was leading out the stately young court ladies to the dance. Morning came, and as the sun rose, the town sank away and the king’s palace, one tower after the other. At last only a single tower remained on the hill where the castle had stood, and the town had become tiny and very poor. The schoolboys came along with their books under their arms, and they said, “two thousand inhabitants,” but that was not true. There were not so many.

Little Tuk was still lying in his bed. First he thought he was dreaming, and then he thought he was not dreaming, but there was somebody close to him.

It was a sailor, a tiny little fellow, who might have been a cadet, and he said, “Little Tuk! Little Tuk! I greet you warmly from Korsöer which is a rising town. It is a flourishing town with steamers and coaches. It lies close to the sea and it has good high roads and pleasure gardens. It wanted to send a ship round the world but it did not do it, although it might have. And there is the most delicious scent about the town because there are beautiful rose gardens close by the gates.”

Little Tuk saw them, the green and red flowering branches, and then they vanished before his eyes and changed into wooded heights sloping down to the clear waters of the fjord. A stately old church towered over the fjord with its twin spires. Springs of water rushed down in bubbling streams, close by them sat an old king with a golden crown round his flowing locks. It was King Kroar of the Springs, and little Tuk was in Rœskilde. Down over the slopes and past the springs walked hand in hand all Denmark’s kings and queens wearing their crowns. On and on they went into the old church in time to the pealing of the bells and the rippling of the springs.

All at once everything vanished—where were they? Now an old peasant woman stood before little Tuk. She was a weeding woman and came from Sorö where the grass grows in the market place. She had put her gray linen apron over her head and shoulders. It was soaking wet; there must have been rain.

“Yes, indeed, it has been raining,” she said. Then she suddenly shrank up and wagged her head. It looked as if she were about to take a leap.

“Koax,” she said, “it is wet; it is wet; it is dull as ditch water—in good old Sorö.” She had become a frog.

“Koax” and then once more she was the old woman.

“One must dress according to the weather,” said she. “It is wet, it is wet. My town is like a bottle; you get in by the neck and you have to come out the same way again.”

The old woman’s voice sounded just like the croaking of frogs, or the creaking of fishing boots when you walk in the swamp. It was always the same sound, so tiresome, so tiresome that little Tuk fell into a deep sleep, which was the best thing for him.

But even in this sound sleep he had a dream, or something of the sort. His little sister, Gustave, with the blue eyes and golden, curly hair, had all at once become a lovely grown up girl and, without having wings, she could fly. So Gustave and Tuk flew together right across Zealand, over the green woods and deep blue waters.

“Do you hear the cock crowing, little Tuk? The hens come flying up from Kiöge town. You shall have such a big, big chicken yard. You will be a rich and happy man! Your house shall hold up its head like the king’s towers, and be richly built up with marble statues like those in Præstö.

“Your name will spread round the world with praise like the ship which was to have sailed from Korsöer; and it will be known as far as Rœskilde town.”

Little Tuk seemed to hear all this in his dreams, but he suddenly woke up. It was bright daylight, and he sprang out of bed and read his book. He found that he knew all the towns in his geography book almost at once.

The old washerwoman put her head in at the door, nodded to him and said—

“Many thanks for your help of yesterday, you dear child. May you have the wish of your heart!”

But little Tuk hurried off to school with his book under his arm. He knew that he had already the wish of his heart—he had learned his geography lesson.

STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF THEIR STIMULUS TO A CHILD’S MEMORY

CHAPTER VII
THE INSTINCT STORY

A NEWLY hatched chicken begins its daily work of living and providing for itself by scratching the earth in a phenomenally short space of time after it has chipped its shell. A baby notices a kitten and stretches out its hands to grasp in them a colored flower at almost the same period of its development as when it smiles at its mother. The chicken and the baby are alike in being creatures of instinct. The chicken scratches because its mother scratched for a living in the days of her chicken-hood and so did her mother and as many other hens and chickens as many previous years as one can count. The baby feels himself akin with the cat and loves the flower because his ancestors lived in close comradeship with animals and nature. From these and from an analysis of many other phases of instinct we may come at a working definition of the phenomenon.

Instinct may be defined as inherited memory.

It may be said that a child starts out on his life journey with a certain amount of brain capital which is his gift at birth. He has no knowledge of the outside world at birth. Color, sound, heat, cold and like concepts are unknown to him and he must make them his through the medium of his senses. The will to use his senses in the acquiring of useful information constitutes his brain capital, however. Instinctively he claims brotherhood with the animal world, and instinctively also he claims kinship with trees and flowers and winter and summer and birds and the gleaming earth. Pebbles and shells and sand and seeds interest him with a compellingness beyond our understanding until we remember that a child is the epitome of all the ages of the race which have combined to make us and our civilization. The age when man bartered with pebbles, decorated his person with shells, lived in a cave and found his food in seeds and berries is exemplified in the little chap at play on the beach with these same nature materials.

This mind capital of instinct with which the child comes into the world may be divided into the instinct to express ideas in bodily movements, instinctive interest in animals and nature, the instinct in rhythm, and the instinct for self-preservation (less highly developed in children than in animals.) There are other and finer divisions into which the different phases and manifestations of instinct fall but for purposes of our discussion these more elastic divisions will serve. The first division, the motor instinct, involves so much in the matter of a child’s dramatizing of stories that it needs a chapter devoted wholly to a study of a child’s bodily expression as stimulated by the images which he has in his mind. The instinct in rhythm, instinctive love of animals and nature, the self-preservation and curiosity instincts may be briefly considered in order of their appearance in the child’s development, having in mind their influence upon the stories we select for a child’s hearing. A financier makes it his special study to discover the best uses to which he can put his capital in order to make it produce for him appreciable dividends. The story teller, using the child mind capital, instinct, as a basis for her selection of stories will find that there are certain instinct stories that she may select for her use, each one of which gives back good returns to her along the measure of child interest.

Instinctive interest in rhythmic movements and rhythmic sounds is found in the very young child. He likes to be trotted, sung to in a monotonous, sing-song fashion; he enjoys clapping his hands in time to some nursery jingle or ditty. Long after this rhythmic period of babyhood is past children like to hear stories that have the rhythmic, repetitional quality, or some jingle introduced that stimulates rhythm. Predominantly is this rhythmic quality found in Mother Goose and folk lore. Children, even of kindergarten age, take the greatest delight in repeating and singing over and over again such rhythmic ditties as:

“Pitty, patty polt; shoe the wild colt.

Here a nail, there a nail, pitty, patty polt.”

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man

Bake me a cake as fast as you can,

Pat it and prick it, and mark it with T,

And put it in the oven for Tommy and me.”

“Intry, mintry, cutry corn,

Apple seed and apple thorn,

Wire, brier, limber, lock.

Three geese in a flock.

One flew East and one flew West,

And one flew over the black-bird’s nest.”

The appeal for the child in the case of all such jingles is a bodily, instinctive one. This instinctive interest in rhythm is the beginning of bodily expression. The repetition of sounds, even though they are meaningless, makes the child feel the story. It gets into his muscles, so to speak, if we may put a psychological fact into physiological terms.

Nearly all of the old folk tales are characterized by this rhythmic swinging-along mode of construction. We all know how children wait breathlessly, and then fairly bubble over with ecstatic mirth as they listen to “The Teeny Tiny Lady,” “The House that Jack Built,” and “The Kid Who Would Not Go.” They literally wait spellbound for such phrases as:

“I’ll huff, and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in.”

The Three Little Pigs.

“First she leaped and then she ran,

Till she came to the cow and thus began.”

The Cat and The Mouse.

“Fallen into the fire, and so will you,

On, little Drummikin, tum, tum, too.”

The Story of Lambikin.

Sheer nonsense, we say? Possibly, for the ears of adults, but for a child it means instinct food. This doggerel verse belongs to a certain stage of his development just as folk songs and war songs of quite as strange content have come down to us from primitive races; and a very sure way of securing a child’s involuntary attention to a story is to select it having in mind its rhythmic content.

Instinctive interest in animals and nature follows the rhythm instinct. This should not be construed into a statement that science and biology should be given children in the story form at an early age. Rather should the world about the child be presented to him on the plane of kinship, his one-ness with it. He is the little Hiawatha, friend of the trees, the deer, the birds, and the stars. Through this friendly introduction to the world of Nature, a child will come to know it, appreciate it, and eventually understand it.

The animal and nature stories that make the strongest appeal to the child’s primitive nature instinct are those which, without mis-stating scientific facts, still make nature of a size with, friendly to, companionable with the child.

King of animal story tellers was Joel Chandler Harris. His “Nights With Uncle Remus” is a book of instinct, race stories. Bre’r Rabbit is an immortal human who walks side by side with a child, holding familiar intercourse with him and telling him the secrets of field and wood and stream. Rudyard Kipling, in the “Jungle Books” and the “Just So Stories” has met the instinct story needs of children by making the wild creatures of the jungle and desert vivid, human and companionable. The fables of the Chinese, of Bidpai and of Æsop have an instinctive interest for all children because they are human documents, an attempted explanation of the moral code, put quaintly by primitive races into the mouths of animals.

Nature stories that meet the instinctive interests of children are less easy for the story teller to find than are good animal stories. The modern nature story that is written about some dry scientific fact is only a bare husk when a child is crying for real food. It would be better to tell a child as a plain statement of a universal fact that the cold mercifully kills the plant that has served its use of reproduction of species that it may make way for another season’s cycle of buds and blooms, than to tell a story about Jack Frost who, airily attired in white, skips about the garden and puts the flowers to sleep. Better, however, than this former bald statement of the year’s autumnal death that presages the awakening to new life in the spring is it to tell children the story of “Ceres and Persephone.” Always, afterward, will the bleak winter suggest to their minds Persephone’s sojourn with Pluto and spring will herald her return to her mother, the flowers springing up for gladness wherever she steps.

The myth meets every child’s instinctive interest.

It is a type of story that has been left us by every race and people as the explanation that primitive minds made of natural phenomenon. Suppose a myth isn’t true. Was the Jack Frost story true; and isn’t there more real literature and imagery and inspiration in the story of Persephone than in any modern “Nature-faked” story? As a child stands on Mount Olympus in company with the gods he gets a vision of the universe that he would gain in no other way. As he rides in Phaëton’s chariot searching for the Apples of Hesperides and helps old Atlas hold the world upon his shoulders he is learning Nature as no text-book can teach her. As he listens to the murmuring of the trees he hears the pipes of Pan and the loving whispers of old Baucis and Philemon among their branches.

We will feed the child’s instincts with the old myths if we wish to secure his lasting interest in nature.

A trifle more difficult for the story teller to meet is the child’s instinct for self preservation. In the case of the lower animals this instinct manifests itself in a perpetual warfare waged tooth and nail against its life enemies, with a result epitomized, always, in the survival of the stronger animal. Primitive man waged a similar warfare. With a peaceful civilization this condition of individual warfare has been done away with, but the instinct to fight for his rights, to preserve his ego, to keep selfishly for his own certain things is a part of the child’s mental heritage from his forbears. The rhythm instinct, the Nature instinct are the gold mine in child development. The self instinct, while in a measure necessary in fitting a child for the life struggle, should be, to a certain extent, inhibited. This inhibition may be brought about through the medium of stories.

Selecting just the right ethical stories to tell a child having in mind making him unselfish is a delicate matter. Each story should present some problem in ethics that is likely to come up in the child’s life. Moreover, the moral of the story should be veiled but made so obvious by the suspensive treatment and climax of the story, that the child unconsciously makes it his own and applies the lesson to his own life. The moral of unselfishness is rather the result of the story than a part of it as the children make its obvious application to their own lives.

The well-known folk tale of “The Little Red Hen” teaches a lesson of unselfishness. The selfish pig, cat and frog are deprived of their portion of the freshly baked loaf of bread because they had no share in its making. Kipling’s story, “How the Camel Got his Hump” in the “Just So Stories” has the same moral of forgetfulness of self. Laura E. Richards’ story, “The Coming of the King,” beautifully illustrates the type of story that inhibits the selfish instinct. It draws a wonderful word picture of the children’s garden made ready for the King and finally welcoming a beggar in ministering to whose needs, however, the children find joy.

The most classic of unselfish stories in the English language is Oscar Wilde’s “Selfish Giant.” It needs no word of introduction or explanation. It illuminates our dull subject of endeavoring to make children self forgetful through the stimulus of the ethical story.

The Selfish Giant

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant’s garden.

It was a large, lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach trees that in the springtime broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. “How happy we are here!” they cried to each other.

One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend, the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.

“What are you doing there?” he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.

“My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant; “any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.” So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS
WILL BE
PROSECUTED.

He was a very selfish giant.

The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. “How happy we were there,” they said to each other.

Then the spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. “Spring has forgotten this garden,” they cried, “so we will live here all the year round.” The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. “This is a delightful spot,” he said, “we must ask the Hail on a visit.” So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in gray, and his breath was like ice.

“I cannot understand why the spring is so late in coming,” said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; “I hope there will be a change in the weather.”

But the spring never came, nor the summer. The autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant’s garden none. “He is too selfish,” she said. So it was always winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.

One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King’s musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing outside his window but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open casement. “I believe the spring has come at last,” said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked out.

What did he see?

He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children’s heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. “Climb up! little boy,” said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.

And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. “How selfish I have been!” he said; “now I know why the spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children’s playground for ever and ever.” He was really very sorry for what he had done.

So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant strode up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them around the Giant’s neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the spring. “It is your garden now, little children,” said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-by.

“But where is your little companion?” he said: “the boy I put into the tree.” The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him.

“We don’t know,” answered the children; “he has gone away.”

“You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow,” said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. “How I would like to see him!” he used to say.

Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. “I have many beautiful flowers,” he said, “but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.”

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the winter now, for he knew that it was merely the spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, “Who hath dared to wound thee?” For on the palms of the child’s hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

“Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.”

“Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.”

“Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, “You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.”

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.

Oscar Wilde.

STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF THEIR INSTINCTIVE INTEREST

CHAPTER VIII
THE DRAMATIC STORY

IN the previous chapter we analyzed certain primitive phases of mental life as manifested in the instinctive acts of children. These manifestations of instinct form a basis for our story selection, guiding us toward a final and certain goal of child interest.

One phase of instinct was left out of our discussion except as it was touched upon primarily in the analysis of a child’s instinctive interest in rhythm. This is the instinct to express through bodily movements the ideas that have found a permanent place for themselves in the mind.

Little E, three years old, was told by her nurse the folk tale of “The Old Woman and Her Pig.” She had heard very few stories, and this one seemed to delight her beyond words. She laughed and clapped her hands over it, and begged to have it repeated and retold even a third time. She made no comment upon the text of the story, however. A week later, she was left alone in her nursery for a short period during the morning and her mother, busy with household duties upon the floor below, thought that she heard E’s voice. Going, quietly, to the door of the nursery she saw E standing, dramatically, in the center of the room, holding a toy broom under her arm, and shaking her finger at a small china pig that stood on the floor in front of her. As she did this, she said in the exact words of the story that had been told her:

“Piggy won’t get over the stile, and I shall not get home to-night.”

“What are you doing, E?” her mother asked in some surprise.

E looked up in wonder as if she, herself, knew a reason for her actions but one that needed no explanation. Finally she spoke:

“I’m doing a story, mother,” she replied.

This incident of E’s instinctive and almost unconscious dramatization of a story which she had heard and whose images had become fixed in her mind illustrates a very common characteristic of a child’s mental life, the instinctive impulse to vitalize the mental life by putting it into terms of expression. It is true that instinctive expression as commonly defined includes in its first manifestations only certain unlearned motor responses, those forms of expression that are ours without previous training or experience. A child cries at a pain, laughs when he is tickled, starts in fear at a sudden and loud noise. These are the primitive forms of instinctive expression, but beyond these and through the use of certain child stories that are full of action, compelling dialogue, and quick movement comes a development of the dramatic instinct in childhood of wonderful value to the teacher.

Why do we want to make use of the dramatic instinct in childhood?

First, because this instinct to do, to act, to express is so common a part of each child’s mental content upon entering school that it forms part of our previously discussed child brain capital. The instinct to do a story, to give it expression in terms of bodily movement would not be given a child unless it had some value for the educator.

Second, we want to utilize the dramatic instinct of childhood, because it is a very sure way of helping a child to gain poise, self-control, and a complete mastery of his environment. The ability to give adequate expression through speech or action to the mental life characterizes the well-developed individual as opposed to the victim of self-consciousness. It means grace of body and freedom of verbal expression.

What qualities differentiate the dramatic child story from that story which is not as well adaptable for child acting?

Primarily, the story that we select for purposes of dramatization should have the quality of being visual—that is, it should be so full of simple, pictorial scenes, episodes and events that it will bring to the minds of the children a definite sequence of word pictures, stimulative to action. This “moving picture” quality is found in the old folk tales, the fables of Æsop and La Fontaine. Here the stage setting of the stories is simple and easily pictured by the child listeners. The story events find an immediate and permanent place in the child’s mind and a possible outlet in action because of their apperceptive quality.

The story of “The Little Red Hen” is an interesting type of the story that lends itself to child dramatizing because of its visual quality. There is a series of home scenes; the little Red Hen’s garden, her house, her kitchen, all familiar and easily seen by children but illuminated with the interest of mystery because of the Hen, herself, and her friends, the Cat and the Frog. “The Elves and the Shoemaker” is also a good story for child acting, while among the most dramatic visual fables are “The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse,” “The Lion and the Mouse,” “The Lark and Her Young Ones” and “The Hare and the Tortoise.”