Tell Me Another Story Part 1

Tell Me Another Story.

by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey.

Preface

The reward of the story-teller who has successfully met the child's story interest is the plea embodied in the t.i.tle of this book: "Tell me another story." The book meets this child longing on a psychologic basis. It consists of groups of stories arranged so that their telling will result in definite mental growth for children, as well as satisfied story hunger.

There has been a tendency in the past to group stories in a haphazard way; there has been no organized plan of selecting stories to precede and follow one another for the purpose of definite functioning of mind processes. The effect of one story of distinctly differentiated theme from one which has just been told is to break continuity of thought.

On the other hand, stories of similar theme, but contrasting form told in the story-hour have a mental effect of concentration and will training. This mental growth through stories is the aim of the book.

The instinctive and universal interests of all children form the themes of the story programs; and these interests are presented in their natural order for a year, beginning with home life, taking the child out into the world, and carrying him through his school, industrial, seasonable, and holiday activities. Three stories have been grouped in each program as the number upon which children can most easily fix their attention.

The plan of grouping the stories in each program is very definite and psychologic. The first story in a group is an apperceptive one; it secures the child's spontaneous attention because, through its plot, it touches his own life in some way. It brings him into close and intimate touch with the interest theme of the program because it speaks of things that he knows, and other things that he can do. The second story in each group makes an appeal to the child's reasoning powers; having secured his attention through the apperceptive story, the story-teller now takes the child a-field, mentally, and secures his voluntary attention. It calls for constructive thought; it presents the theme of the program in a broader way, with wider application. It is, usually, the longest story of the program. The third story is, invariably, the dessert of this story meal. Through its brevity, humor, tenderness, or sharply contrasting treatment of the program theme, it supplies the necessary relaxation, the fitting climax for the program.

An a.n.a.lysis of the Trade Life program will ill.u.s.trate the psychologic appeal upon which the book is built. The story, The Holiday, opens the program with its apperceptive appeal, showing the dependence of the home upon the industrial life of the community and the possibility of a child's cooperation in it. The second story in the trade program, Selma Lagerloof's Nils and the Bear, gives this wonderful Swedish writer's presentation of the iron industry as a factor in our growth from savagery to civilization. The third story, The Giant Energy and Fairy Skill, by Maud Lindsay, gives the program its climax in fantasy and contrast.

A similar a.n.a.lysis may be made of each program in the book.

It is not intended that the stories shall never be told to children separately; on the contrary, each story is one of the best examples to be found of the child interest which forms its theme. The book has been prepared, however, to meet in an educational way the need expressed in its t.i.tle. It should be of value for the home, school, library, and settlement.

CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY.

NEW YORK, 1918.

EDITORIAL NOTE

I am indebted for editorial courtesies in connection with copyrighted material appearing in Tell Me Another Story to the following publishers:

Frederick A. Stokes and the b.u.t.terick Company for The Country Cat by Grace McGowan Cooke, and appearing in Sonny Bunny Rabbit and His Friends. Lucy Wheelock for The Little Acorn. Julia Darrow Cowles for The Plowman Who Found Content from The Art of Story Telling. The D. C.

Heath Company for The Story of the Laurel by Grace H. Kupfer. Ginn and Company for The Story of the First Thanksgiving, and Doll-in-the-Gra.s.s. Doubleday, Page and Company for The Animals' New Year's Eve and Nils and the Bear from the Further Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerloof. The Youth's Companion for Chip's Thanksgiving, The Rescue of Old Glory, The Tinker's Willow, The Three Brothers, and Molly's Easter Hen. The Thomas Y. Crowell Company for The Bird, and The Gray Hare from The Long Exile by Count Lyof N. Tolstoi. The American Book Company for The Three Little b.u.t.terfly Brothers.

Little, Brown and Company for How Peter Rabbit Got His White Patch.

The Pilgrim Press for How the Flowers Came by Jay T. Stocking, appearing as Queeny Queen and The Flowers, in The City That Never Was Reached. The Giant's Plaything is used by special permission of the publishers of the Book of Knowledge. The selections by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Alice Brown are used by permission of and by special arrangement with the Houghton Mifflin Company. The Milton Bradley Company controls the copyrights of The Giant Energy and Fairy Skill, and The Birthday by Maud Lindsay, and my story, The Log Cabin Boy.

CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY.

THE HOME

THE TREASURE IN THE HOUSE

Once upon a time there was a little Princess, and when she was ten years old they gave her a wonderful birthday party. There were musicians, and roses in all the rooms, and strawberry ice cream, and cakes with pink icing. Every one brought gifts.

The King, her father, gave the Princess a white pony with a long tail, and a blue and silver harness. The Queen, her mother, gave the Princess a little gold tea set for her dolls. There were other beautiful gifts; a ring with a sparkling stone set in it, and a dozen or so new silk dresses, and a nightingale in a gold cage; but every one waited to see what the gift of the Princess' fairy-G.o.dmother would be.

She was late coming to the party. One never knew just _how_ she would come, on wings, or on a broomstick. This time she came walking, and dressed in a short red gown and a white ap.r.o.n. Her kind eyes twinkled as she gave her gift to the Princess.

Such a strange gift as it was, only a tiny black key!

"This will unlock a little house at the end of the garden which is my birthday gift to you," the fairy-G.o.dmother of the Princess said. "In the little house you will find a treasure." And then, as suddenly as she had come, the fairy-G.o.dmother was gone, wearing one of her surprise smiles on her lips.

Every one wondered about the house, and some of the guests went to the end of the garden to look at it. All they saw, though, was a tiny thatched cottage, very neat, but not at all fine. So they turned up their noses and went back to the castle.

"A very poor present indeed!" they said.

The little Princess put the key in the silk bag that hung at her side and then forgot all about it. Not until late in the afternoon did she go to the end of the garden.

The little house made her curious, because it was so different from the castle. The castle had great, coloured windows, but the little house had tiny ones with crimson geraniums on the ledges and plain white curtains.

She opened the door and went inside. The castle had many rooms, large and lonely, but the little house had one room, small and very cozy.

There was a chimney and a fireplace where a bright little fire sparkled and danced and chuckled to itself. A tea kettle hung over the hob and it was singing, as the water bubbled, the merriest song that the little Princess had ever heard. The table was set for tea. It was a very plain tea, only white bread and b.u.t.ter, and honey, and milk; but it made the Princess hungry to look at it. In front of the fire stood a straight-backed chair and a little spinning wheel.

The Princess sat down to her tea. How pleasant the little house was, she thought, and how unusually hungry she was!

At tea, in the castle, she often was not hungry and asked for food that was not good for her, roasted peac.o.c.k, and almond cakes, and plum pudding. But here, in her own little house, she found that nothing was quite so good as bread and b.u.t.ter, and her milk tasted as sweet as the honey.

After tea the Princess sat down in the straightest chair, and although she had never in her life touched a spinning wheel before, she began to spin. _Whirr, whirr_, the wheel turned and sang, as fine white thread grew from the bunch of linen floss. The fire danced, and the tea kettle sang, and the spinning wheel whirred merrily. It was so pleasant to have had such a nice tea and to be working in her own little house that the Princess began to sing too. She sang like a bird, and she had never known before that she could sing.

"I heard you singing, and I stopped."

The Princess turned and she saw a little boy of her own age standing in the room. He had a very pleasant face, but he was dressed in ragged clothes. His shirt was so full of holes that it scarcely covered his back.

"What are you spinning?" he asked.

The Princess had not known, until that moment, what she was spinning, but now she understood at once.

"I am spinning to make you a new shirt," she said.

"Oh, thank you!" said the little boy as he smiled down at her. The Princess looked at him, wondering. She noticed that his eyes looked very like those of her fairy-G.o.dmother.

Then she thought of something else.

"In the little house you will find a treasure," her fairy-G.o.dmother had said.

She looked all about. There was no gold, or anything that she had thought before was a treasure there. Then she listened to her heart that was singing, too, now. That was it. Her fairy-G.o.dmother had given her, in her little house, the treasure of a happy heart.