ally slow will wade painfully and
laboriously through a fairy story, while he would throw down in disgust
an account of the sprouting of the bean or the mining of coal.

It can hardly be questioned, moreover, that the real culture which the
child derives from these literary classics is far greater than that
which he would gain from the "information" stories so common in the
average second and third readers.

CONTENTS

PAGE
THE SHIP _Old English Rhyme_ 13
THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN YOUNG KIDS _William and Jacob Grimm_ 14
THEY DIDN'T THINK _Phoebe Cary_ 22
TOM THUMB _English Fairy Tale_ 24
SUPPOSE _Alice Cary_ 34
CINDERELLA _English Fairy Tale_ 36
RAINDROPS _Ann Hawkshawe_ 43
THE FOUR FRIENDS _William and Jacob Grimm_ 44
LITTLE BIRDIE _Alfred Tennyson_ 54
MOTHER FROST _William and Jacob Grimm_ 55
IF EVER I SEE _Lydia Maria Child_ 65
WHY THE BEAR'S TAIL IS SHORT _German Folk Tale_ 66
RUMPELSTILTSKIN _William and Jacob Grimm_ 70
BED IN SUMMER _Robert Louis Stevenson_ 81
THE GOLDEN TOUCH _Greek Myth_ 82
OVER IN THE MEADOW _Olive A. Wadsworth_ 89
THE BELL OF ATRI _German Folk Tale_ 92
THE BABY _Hugh Miller_ 96
BRUCE AND THE SPIDER _Scottish Tradition_ 97
THE WISE LITTLE PIG _Anonymous_ 100
AN INDIAN STORY 102
A GOOD PLAY _Robert Louis Stevenson_ 112
DICK WHITTINGTON _English Folk Tale_ 113
THE NEW MOON _Eliza Lee Follen_ 124
BRIAR ROSE _William and Jacob Grimm_ 126
ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL _Mrs. C.F. Alexander_ 135
THE BAKER BOYS AND THE BEES _German Folk Tale_ 136
FALLING SNOW _Anonymous_ 142
LITTLE GOODY TWO SHOES _Ascribed to Goldsmith_ 143
ONE STEP AND THEN A