Fourth Grade Read Aloud Banquet




The Snake

A narrow fellow in the grass

Occasionally rides;

You may have met him,—did you not,

His notice sudden is.


The grass divides as with a comb,

A spotted shaft is seen;

And then it closes at your feet

And opens further on.


He likes a boggy acre

A floor too cool for corn

Yet when a child, and barefoot,

I more than once, at morn,


Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash

Unbraiding in the sun,—

When, stooping to secure it,

It wrinkled, and was gone.


Several of nature's people

I know, and they know me;

I feel for them a transport

Of cordiality;


But never met this fellow,

Attended or alone,

Without a tighter breathing,

And zero at the bone.


  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 52 Seasonal Story Victoria—War from Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall Seasonal Story Seasonal Story Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow from The Struggle for Sea Power by M. B. Synge The Little Match-Girl from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Across the Lake by Lisa M. Ripperton Seasonal Story
Seasonal Story Seasonal Story Seasonal Story Seasonal Story Seasonal Story Seasonal Story And Now We Come to the Last Scene in the Pantomime from The Rose and the Ring by William Makepeace Thackeray
Summary from The Rose and the Ring by William Makepeace Thackeray
  Seasonal Poem The Death of the Old Year by Alfred Lord Tennyson Seasonal Poem Seasonal Poem Seasonal Poem An Old Christmas Carol, Anonymous
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Wolf, the Kid, and the Goat

Mother Goat was going to market one morning to get provisions for her household, which consisted of but one little Kid and herself.

"Take good care of the house, my son," she said to the Kid, as she carefully latched the door. "Do not let anyone in, unless he gives you this password: 'Down with the Wolf and all his race!' "

Strangely enough, a Wolf was lurking near and heard what the Goat had said. So, as soon as Mother Goat was out of sight, up he trotted to the door and knocked.


[Illustration]

"Down with the Wolf and all his race," said the Wolf softly.

It was the right password, but when the Kid peeped through a crack in the door and saw the shadowy figure outside, he did not feel at all easy.

"Show me a white paw," he said, "or I won't let you in."

A white paw, of course, is a feature few Wolves can show, and so Master Wolf had to go away as hungry as he had come. "You can never be too sure," said the Kid, when he saw the Wolf making off to the woods.

Two sureties are better than one.