. He
attends to but one thing at a time. And his steps from one point to the
next are short and clear.

When we look at the forms which have been presented to children with
these their spontaneous patterns fresh in mind, we can see, I think, why
Mother Goose has been taken as a child's own and Eugene Field and even
Stevenson rejected as unintelligible. I do not believe there is anything
in the content of Mother Goose to win the child. I believe it is the
form that makes the appeal. Vachel Lindsay, whose daring play with words
has made him an object of suspicion to the reluctant of mind, has given
us one poem in pattern singularly like the children's own and in content
full of interest and charm. Again I give examples as the quickest of
arguments. And I give them in verse where the form is more obvious and
can be shown in briefer space than in stories.

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

TIME TO RISE

A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon the window sill,
Cocked his shining eye and said:
"Ain't you shamed, you sleepy head?"

--_Stevenson._

THE LITTLE TURTLE

(A recitation for Martha Wakefield, three years old)

There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at a musquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.

He caught the musquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn't catch me.

--_Vachel Lindsay._

From THE DINKEY-BIRD

So when the children shout and scamper
And make merry all the day,
When there's naught to put a damper
To the ardor of their play;
When I hear their laughter ringing,
Then I'm sure as sure can be
That the Dinkey-bird is singing
In the amfalula tree.

--_Eugene Field._

Of the two "Jack and Jill" and "Birdie with the Yellow Bill," surely
Stevenson's is the more charming to the adult ear. But when I have read
it to three-year-olds, I have felt that they were lost. They could not
sustain the long grammatical suspense, could not carry over "A birdie"
from the first line to the conclusion and so actually did not know who
was saying "Ain't you shamed, you sleepy-head!" Mother Goose repeats her
subje