^^.r^\ •.<^"'- -0' ■ ^^^aJ'^, ^ cP ^^\-:'.% I : "Vo^ \ .# r - ^ ^^0^ .* '. '%. o^ ^^O^ ^^ O^ THE WRITER'S LIBRARY Edited by J. Berg Esenwein, a.m., utt.d., f.r.s.a. WRITING THE SHORT-STORY THE STANDARD MANUAL FOR AMA- TEUR AND PROFESSIONAL WRITERS BY J. BERG ESENWEIN 457 pp. Cloth; $1.50, postpaid WRITING THE PHOTOPLAY A COMPLETE COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN WRITING AND SELLING BY J. B. ESENWEIN AND ARTHUR LEEDS 384 pp. Cloth; illustrated; $2.12, postpaid STUDYING THE SHORT-STORY SIXTEEN COMPLETE MASTERPIECES WITH ANALYSES AND MANY HELPS BY J. BERG ESENWEIN 470 pp. Cloth; $1.50, postpaid THE ART OF VERSIFICATION A CLEARLY-STATED WORKING HAND- BOOK FOR WRITERS AND STUDENTS BY J. B. ESENWEIN AND M. E. ROBERTS 323 pp. Cloth; $1.62, postpaid THE ART OF STORY-WRITING AN EXPLICIT GUIDE FOR WRITING ALL SHORT FICTIONAL FORMS BY J. B. ESENWEIN AND M. D. CHAMBERS 222 pp. Cloth; $1.35, postpaid THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING AN INSPIRING AND PRACTICAL BOOK THAT REALLY SHOWS THE WAY BY J. B. ESENWEIN AND DALE CARNAGEY 526 pp. Cloth; $1.75, postpaid WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE A FULL BOOK OF INSTRUCTION ON THE WRITING OF ALL VAUDEVILLE FORMS BY BRETT PAGE 639 pp. Cloth; $2.15, postpaid THE TECHNIQUE OF THE MYS- TERY STORY BY CAROLYN WELLS 350 pp. Cloth; $1.62, postpaid WRITING FOR THE MAGAZINES METHODS FOR WRITING ALL KINDS OF MAGAZINE MATERIAL BY J. BERG ESENWEIN 275 pp. Cloth; $1.62, postpaid THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING AN AUTHORITATIVE MODERN GUIDE TO THE WRITING AND SELLING OF PLAYS BY CHARLTON ANDREWS 299 pp. Cloth; $1.62, postpaid WRITING THE POPULAR SONG THE ONLY COMPLETE AND AUTHORI- TATIVE MANUAL BY E. M. WICKES 195 pp. Cloth; $1.35, postpaid CHILDREN'S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM BY J. BERG ESENWEIN AND MARIETTA STOCKARD 365 pp. Cloth; $1.62, postpaid IN PREPARATION MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION INCLUDING PROOFREADING, SPELLING, CAPITALIZATION, ETC. BY J. BERG ESENWEIN THE RHYMER'S WORD BOOK A FULL CATALOGUE OF RHYMING WORDS BY J. BERG ESENWEIN AND CHARLES MORRIS OF THE WRITER'S BOOK SYNONYMS BY J. BERG ESENWEIN AND C. O. SYLVES- TER MAWSON MAKING THE RURAL NEWS- PAPER BY MERLE THORPE OTHER VOLUMES TO BE ANNOUNCED UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME CHILDREN'S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM BY J. BERG ESENWEIN, LITT. D. AUTHOR OF "writing THE 8HORT-8TORY," ETC. AND MARIETTA STOCKARD, A. B. OF THE WILSON NORMAL SCHOOL, WASHINGTON, D. C. THE WRITER'S LIBRARY EDITED BY J. BERG ESENWEIN THE HOME CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL Springfield, Mass. Publishers \ 0^ *''^ Copyright 191 7 The Home Correspondence School all rights reserved QEC29l3i7 CO ©CI.A479718 / ^^7 F^ TO THE CHILDREN THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED Contents Page Foreword xiii PART I HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN Chapter I — The Story-Teller as Artist . . i Voice and Word 3 Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 5 Chapter II — The Place of the Story in the Life of the Child 6 Capability and Culture 6 Literature the Keystone of the Educational Arch 9 Importance of Cultivating the Imagination . 9 Culture Should Begin in Childhood ... 11 Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 14 Grist from Other Mills 14 Chapter III — How Stories Develop the Per- sonality 16 Stories Express the Hopes of Mankind . . 18 Stories Lead to Moral Judgments .... 20 Stories Stimulate Mental and Moral Processes 21 Efects of Fiction on the Personality ... 21 Efect of Fiction on the Story-Teller ... 24 Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 25 Grist from Other Mills 26 Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter IV— The Basis of Selection of Children's Stories 28 The Child Himself as a Basis 30 Literary Quality as a Basis 34 The Mood of the Story-Teller 37 Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 38 Grist from Other Mills 40 Chapter V — The Structure of the Story . 42 The Beginning of the Story 43 Examples of openings. The Body of the Story 47 The tale; plot; the short-story; series of scenes; episodes; plausibility; motivation; crisis; suspense; climax. The End of the Story 52 Examples of endings. Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 55 Grist from Other Mills 57 Chapter VI — The Preparation of the Story FOR Telling 58 The Subjective Appeal , 58 Re-creating the Conditions of the Story . . 59 The Intensive Analysis of the Story ... 61 The central theme; details; incidents; series of scenes; the climax. Fitting Words to the Story 63 Equivocal words; style; transitions. Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 65 Chapter VII — Methods of Story-Telling . 67 The Mood of the Story-Teller 67 Self-electrification; absorption; visuahzation. The Manner of the Story -Teller .... 70 Attitude; personal appearance; poise. Methods in Delivery 72 TABLE OF CONTENTS IX Page Memorizing; charm of voice; enunciation; articulation; change of pace; pause; change of pitch; position and posture; gesture and mimicry; drawing; gauging effects. Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 79 Grist from Other Mills 80 Chapter VIII — Inventing Stories from Pic- tures 82 Observation 83 Reporting 83 Coordination 85 Fictionizing 86 Narration 86 Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 88 Chapter IX — Adapting Stories from Great Sources 90 Analyze the Story 93 Study the Situation to be Adapted .... 94 Focus the Story 95 Select a Single Chain of Scenes .... 97 What is dramatic; danger and suspense; omis- sion; expansion; methods of alteration. Stories for Adaptation 103 Cycles of stories. Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 105 Grist from Other Mills 107 Chapter X — Telling Original Stories . . 108 Why Tell Original Stories? 108 Whereto Find Story Material 11 1 Locality; family legends and anecdotes. Avoiding the Threadbare 112 The Development of the Plot 113 Suggestions FOR Study and Discussion . . 114 X TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter XI — Helping Children to Invent Stories ii6 Helps to the Child's Invention ii8 Examples of original stories by children. Suggestions for Study and Discussion . . 123 Grist from Other Mills 124 PART II FIFTY STORIES TO TELL TO CHILDREN Chapter XII — Stories for Very Little Folks 127 Introduction; "Thumbelina;" *' The Goats in the Rye Field;" ''The Billy-Goats Gruff;'' "The Lion and the Mouse;" "The Little Half- Chick." Chapter XIII — Folk and Fairy Stories . . 144 Introduction; "Tom Thumb;" "The Three Heads;" "Why the Sea is Salt;" "The Legend of the Dipper;" "Jack and Jill's Visit to the Moon;" *' Barney Noonan's Fairy Haymakers;" "The Discontented Chickens;" "The Ugly Duckling;" "The Golden Touch;" "The Woodman and the Goblins;" "The Star-Wife." Chapter XIV — Animal Stories 192 Introduction; "The Sheep and the Pig Who Set Up Housekeeping;" "The Fox and the Cock;" "Scrapefoot;" "The Clever Rat;'^ "Father Domino." Chapter XV — Bible Stories 214 Introduction ; " In the Beginning ; " "The Story of Joseph;" "The Story of the Baby Moses;" "David and Goliath." TABLE OF CONTENTS XI Page Chapter XVI— Patriot Stories 232 Introduction; ''George Washington and the Colt;" ''George Washington and the Cherry Tree;" ''Going to Sea;" " George Washington as a Young Man;" "George Washington the Great Man." Chapter XVII— Thanksgiving Stories . . 245 Introduction; " Ruth and Naomi ; " "Old Man Rabbit's Thanksgiving Dinner." Chapter XVIII— Christmas Stories ... 254 Introduction ; " The Shoemaker and the Elves ; " "The Visit to Santa Claus Land;" "Snowball's Christmas Eve;" "Nancy Etticoat's Ring;" "The Christmas Visitors;" "The First Christ- mas." Chapter XIX— Spring Stories 278 Introduction; "Five Peas in the Pod;" "Pic- ciola;" "Proserpina;" "A Wondrous Change;" "Sleeping Beauty." Chapter XX— Hero Stories 302 Introduction; "The Little Hero of Haarlem;" " Joan of Arc; " " The Young Knight Galahad; " "The Rescue of Sir Melyas;" "The Castle of the Maidens;" **St. George and the Dragon;" "St. George and the Giant." PART III READING AND REFERENCE LISTS Supplementary List of Stories for Very Little Folks 329 Supplementary List of Animal Stories . . 330 Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS Page First Books for Little Children .... 330 Books for Older Children 332 Source-Books for the Story-Teller . . . 334 Books and Articles on Children's Reading . 338 Books on Story-Telling Methods .... 339 Books on Literary Study and Its Value . . 340 Publishers' Addresses 341 General Index 343 FOREWORD We cannot wonder at the skeptical smile which in certain quarters is sure to greet each new ''How to" book as it issues from the press, for too many such books have seemed arrogant, and too many readers have assumed, to their eventual disappointment, that it is within the power of some omniscient author to disclose an infallible recipe for the successful practice of a given art. Of course no such thing is possible. There are no secrets that a painter, a writer or a story-teller can divulge but that may be, and in fact often have been, discovered at first hand by those who have added to their native gifts the devotion of in- telligent practice. What is more, there are no fixed rules in art— in literary art especially— by which the would-be artist must be governed as he proceeds. What service, then, can the authors of a book of this kind hope to give to those who take it up expecting help? They can, after either personal experience or a wide and temperate study of the methods of others (or, better still, after both kinds of preparation), make a clear statement of the various methods used successfully by story-tellers— since that is the scope of this treatise. From these methods, approved by the experience of many, certain simple foundation-principles may be deduced so as to help the student of the art to understand the material he has to work with, the forms in which it may be cast, various successful methods of presentation, the limitations of his XIV FOREWORD hearers, and the ends he is justified in seeking to gain. Further, these principles may be clearly illustrated by examples so as to show, first, how others have applied them; and second, how the story-teller may modify and improve upon the ways of others in reaching the particu- lar results he desires. The whole process of teaching such an art may be com- pared to the Automobile Blue Book, which points out the directness of one route, the delights of another, and the difficulties of a third, while leaving the motorist to choose for himself — knowingly. Those story-tellers who have had to search out their own trails through Storyland freely recognize that they would have been saved many a detour, many a *' blind" lane, if only some earlier traveler had erected a few friendly guide posts. This, then, is a modest little Blue Book, which analyzes the several wa3^s that lie before the adventurer into the delightful fields of romance, offers advice on matters of equipment, points out difiicult curves, warns of deceptive byways, and seeks, without the interjection of a single impertinent must, to help the traveler choose his own way with confident ease. The use of story-telling in home, school, Sunday-school and recreation center is now so fully recognized as a power- ful factor in education, in character building and in de- light-giving, that no words are needed here to urge upon home, school and social guardians the importance of learning how to tell the best stories in the best ways. The Authors. August I, 191 7. PART I HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN CHAPTER I THE STORY-TELLER AS ARTIST Out of your cage, Come out of your cage And take your soul on a pilgrimage ! Pease in your shoes, an if you must ! But out and away before you're dust: Scribe and stay-at-home, Saint and sage, Out of your cage. Out of your cage ! — Josephine Preston Peabody, The Piper. The story-teller is an interpreter of life — he interprets the life embodied in his story to the common life which throbs through his audience. The first requirement for an interpreter is the ability to understand; the second is power to transmit his under- standing. It is a mere truism to say that he who would under- stand life must first of all live it; yet how many of us burrow like moles, each in his separate dark passageway, not questioning why we burrow, or whither the passage- way leads. Or if we have passed the mole stage and stand upright on the face of the earth, do we not still obey the animal instinct to consort each with his own kind? The millionaire in his limousine seldom has much discernment of the problems of a strap-hanger, while the man who 2 children's stories and how to tell them always has a nickel is just as bliniji to the life of the man who must walk. So also the mother in her sheltered home may have small vision of the way of the woman who, perhaps through no choice of her own, walks with empty arms and a lonely heart. But the artist who would perfectly interpret life must touch vitally the lives of "all sorts and conditions of men," else he cannot have a sympathetic imagination to grasp the varied problems of all classes. To be able to think and feel with his fellows he must possess the insight to search out their hidden hearts; and, if he be a great artist, he will have also the bigness of soul which does not lightly condemn that which his probing reveals. He will have, too, the skill born of heart and head which is able to reveal the bond of emotion that "makes the whole world kin." Love, hate, courage, fear, joy, sorrow, make up a common human-beingness which eliminates surface class distinctions. It is with such fundamental emotions that the artist deals, whatever the medium he chooses for their em- bodiment. The painter with his brush, the sculptor with his chisel, the writer with his pen, the story-teller with his spoken words, each in his own way transmits the message his spirit has seized and evaluated. For artistry deals with values, set up as standards for works of art which are yet to be conceived and brought into being, and not with mere methods or technique. Story-telUng, then, rightly belongs to the arts, and the story-teller's preparation for his work as an artist must begin with the enrichment of his own personality. He THE STORY-TELLER AS ARTIST 3 must acquire the culture of the student of literature; he must be mellowed through his experiences in his own human relationships ; he must be, as Ethel Clifford says, ". . . lover of wind and sun, And of falling rain, and the friend of trees; With a singing heart for the pride of noon, And a tender heart for what twilight sees. " Let him be lover of you and yours — The Child and Mary; but also Pan, And the sylvan gods of the woods and hills, And the God that is hid in his fellowman." With his culture, with his love of nature, with his love of his fellowman, he must keep the dauntless courage, the joy in life, which belongs to the spirit of youth. Dif- ficult, perhaps impossible? Yes; the ideal of the artist is always so. As Browning tells us, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's heaven for?" Not so much the attainment as the pursuit of the vision differentiates the clod from the master. So he who has not some urge of vision should not enter the field. But he who cannot resist the call for creative expression must choose his medium — then sharpen his tools. Voice and Word The spoken word is the story-teller's chief technical equipment. A knowledge of words, precision and fluency in their use, as well as voice-placing and training in articu- lation, are essential. The successful story-teller must 4 children's stories and how to tell them make word and voice the servants of his spirit. Voice and utterance infallibly reveal the appreciation, or the lack of it, which the story-teller has for the story he is presenting. It is through speech that man begins to assert his divinity. We move through life wrapped in the impenetra- ble veil of individuality, sentenced to aloneness — except for the gift of expression. It is chiefly through the spoken word that spirit kindles response of spirit, and reveals itself to its kind. "The eyes are the windows of the soul," but the voice is its musical instrument, through which its subtle harmonies are transmitted. The old Witch of the Sea was maliciously sagacious when she required the little Mermaid to give her voice in exchange for human form, and then set her the task of winning the love of the Prince in order to attain the soul. Thought of in terms of the painter, the voice is the pigment which gives color to the story-teller's pictures. He paints in spoken words, and his canvases are the minds of his listeners. So the story-teller needs the painter's love of beauty, the writer's command of words, the actor's sense of the dramatic, the orator's adaptability to his audience, the psychologist's knowledge of the mind, the philosopher's interpretation of the meaning and purpose of life. Does all this seem an appalUng program? So is any other that honestly contemplates child-development; but how rich is the reward at the end! It is the joy of the story-teller, as it is that of every artist worthy of the name, that his preparation must be as THE STORY-TELLER AS ARTIST 5 broad as life itself. The aspiration to be an interpreter of life is a daring, a wonderful dream. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. What is art? 2. In what fundamental respects does an art differ from a science? From a trade? From a business? 3. Why are we justified in regarding story- telling as an art? 4. Does the fact that an art has a technique imply that its practice is governed by fixed rules? 5. Does a knowledge of the principles of the story-teller's art tend to hamper originaHty or to encourage it? Give reasons. 6. May one go too far in laying down rules for the practice of an art? 7. What is the difference between a principle and a rule? 8. What relation does art bear to life? 9. Briefly explain what the poet meant by her lines quoted as a preface to this chapter. 10. What is interpretation? 11. Should the impossibility of attaining the ideal deter the possible artist from attempting to express himself through art? 12. What has emotion to do with art? CHAPTER II THE PLACE OF THE STORY IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILD Stories are the natural soul-food of children, their native air and vital breath; but our children are too often either story- starved or charged with ill-chosen or ill-adapted twaddle tales. — G. Stanley Hall, Sunday-school and Bible Teaching. Story-telling will make the child father to a more kind-hearted, a more enthusiastic, a more idealistic man than the one taught to scorn story-telling. The story-telling nations of the world are the cheerful, social, enthusiastic, ideahstic nations, and this is because story-telling to the child brings out all the better qualities — sympathy, warm-heartedness, sociabiHty. — Seumas McManus, Lecture. Economic conditions, changing standards of living, and other complexities of modern life have increased the difficulty of mere existence and put well-marked success, in any line, out of reach of the man who is not highly specialized in his training. The preparation which brought success a quarter of a century ago would guarantee only mediocrity today. Capability and Culture This higher standard of efficiency has inevitably had its effect on education. Parents have demanded that the schools shall attack and solve the problem of equipping the student for efficient living. In response, vocational THE PLACE OF THE STORY IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILD 7 schools have spread like plants in a force-bed. Domestic science departments, agricultural classes — in fact, many phases of physical work, have come to be represented in the college and university curriculums. These short cuts to making a living have been emphasized because efficiency has been interpreted as the ability to satisfy the demand for physical luxuries. Silk stockings, tailor-made clothes and diamond rings were once badges of social distinction, but in a democracy every man must see to it that he and his have an open road to the ''good things of life." Success or failure has been measured by the money standard, which in turn has come to mean the luxury standard, and as a consequence there is a tendency to limit the essentials of education to the purely utilitarian subjects. But this misplacement of emphasis is only a temporary phase in the transition to the great middle ground which in the development of every question seems to be the truly progressive roadway. If schools deserve criticism for turning out half-baked philosophers who are unable to meet every-day issues because they have been trained away from actual life, they deserve equal censure when they send out materialists who recognize only physical needs. True, physical needs must be satisfied, for the man who is hungry is not likely to do much high thinking, but the development of ability to satisfy those needs is only one phase of the demand properly made upon education — the development of a capacity for high thinking and right feeling is equally essential. In a striking article on "The Columniated Collegian," 8 children's stories and how to tell them published in The Atlantic Monthly, June, 191 5, Mary Leal Harkness says: " So we come to one of the gravest charges that can be brought against the 'new education': that, while it may bring jobs to men and women when they are young, it provides nothing for the man or woman retired from that job by age. If there is anything beneath the stars more pitiable than an elderly man or woman with no active purpose left in life and no intellectual resources from which to draw occupation and interest, I have not yet seen it." Only the full mind and the warm heart can find high contentment; so, even from a selfish standpoint, the necessity for the development of all sides of the self must be admitted. Capability and culture are not to be divorced. Modern life demands men and women who can do things, who can think clearly while in the thick of action, and who to their judgment and initiative have added ideals of courage, of sympathy, and of justice. Parents and teachers who can see below the surface recognize the true goal of life to be a self-development which is expressed in service. As a result, they demand that the curriculum shall not be narrowed to the purely utilitarian. There must be an education newer than **the new" — an education which is a blend of the new economic studies and the old cultural subjects. True efficiency can be realized only through the enrichment of personality.^ Indeed, the problem of education is funda- mentally the problem of the development of personahty. 1 See Chapter III. THE PLACE OF THE STORY IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILD Q When the question "To what purpose?" is appUed as a test to the subject-matter of the course of studies it must be answered in the Ught of this larger problem. Hence, the educational leaders who are meeting the foregoing question are agreed that Literature Must he Made the Keystone of the Educational Arch This conclusion has been reached because it is the ex- pansion of individual life into world-life that is desired, and literature is built of the stuff of world-life; it is the art-form of the best that has been thought, felt, and done since the beginning of man's conscious life in the world. Literature reveals man to himself. It interprets his thoughts, emotions and experiences. It deepens his understanding of other men: their temptations and failures, their aspirations and successes. Through know- ing himself and his fellows he becomes better fitted for cooperation. Every time a piece of real literature has become a part of himself, the man has advanced further into the meaning and purpose of life. And by * ' literature ' ' is not meant those forms which move only the minds of the highly educated few, but those true, beautiful, strong and good creations which appeal also to the many. The Importance of Cultivating the Imagination Not only does literature enlarge the sympathies and deepen the understanding, but it quickens the imagina- lO CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM tion. Imagination is too often interpreted as idle fantasy — vague, pointless dreaming. On the contrary, it is the clarifying chemical in the crucible of the mind, and useful in the last degree. Imagination pictures vividly all the possibilities of a given situation. It reveals causes and forecasts results. It analyzes and reconstructs. In field, shop, store, office, forum, study, and home, it rules the world because it is the creative force of the mind and the heart. The complex problems of modern life can be solved only by men and women of highly developed imagination. It is the woman with imagination who transforms the daily round of her home and social duties into an inter- esting adventure, or if her work lies in some other field of activity makes herself felt as a real force in life. It is the business man with imagination who becomes a million- aire. It is the professional man with imagination who reaches the head of his profession. It is the scientist with imagination who makes the world rich by his discoveries. ''Assign to almost any task requiring thought an imagina- tive man with scant logic, and an unimaginative logician; nine times out of ten the former will handle it more successfully." ^ The longings and imaginings of the race have fore- shadowed all the modern scientific inventions. The Kalevala, the great epic of the Finns, sung in runes as early as 2000 B. C, tells of a battle in which takes part a monster eagle of steel and iron, filled with a thousand magic heroes. The dread Zeppelin has not quite attained 1 Short- Story Writing, Walter B. Pitkin. THE PLACE OF THE STORY IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILD 1 1 the power of its '"hero-feathered" forerunner, but — the future! The Norse centuries ago told tales of ''hill- borers" which could tunnel through the rockiest moun- tains, and of "stream-suckers" which changed the current of great rivers. The Panama Canal and a thousand other engineering feats of today are monuments to these dreams of the ages. Fairy lore is filled with stories of calls heard round the world. The telegraph, the telephone, and last of all, Marconi's message of sound, have made the old tales come true. Madam Curie's discovery of radium has brought the inexhaustible store and the magic healing substance from fairyland into real life. Again, literature develops the imagination through its power of inducing keen emotions which perpetuate its images. These images are concrete, vivid, vital and beautiful. They become a part of the mind's store house, and are its inexhaustible food. The man whose mind is so developed is fortified against boredom, loneliness, poverty and misfortune. "Education of the soul by literature," says Professor George Edward Woodberry, "is a very real thing. It issues in insight into life and fate, in sympathy with whatever is human, in apprehension of what seems divine — issues, that is, in greater power to live." Culture Should Begin in Childhood Those who recognize the power of literature recognize equally well that it must be brought into the life of the youth at the earliest possible time. The introductory to 12 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM literature should be through the first stories that are pre- sented to the child in the nursery and in the kindergarten. The power of the story in the life of the child is equally as great as that of the literature read by the youth and by the man. It is because the social worker, the teacher, the mother, are coming to realize its force that a revival of story-telling is sweeping through the entire world. In- deed, so wide-spread is this revival that in some cases the story is being misused. Because of the child's natural love for it, the uninteresting and the indolent seize upon the story as the too-facile tool for accomplishing their ends. Nature stories, music stories, bed-time stories, all sorts and conditions of stories, are thrust upon the child. Fortunately, this fulness of story-telling cannot destroy the fundamental appeal of the story for him. Yet there is a real danger here which both teacher and mother should recognize and guard against. No story which is not real literature should he given him. There is little excuse for cluttering the mind of a child with ''ill-chosen or ill- adapted twaddle tales," in Dr. Stanley Hall's pungent phrase. It is not enough that a story be a story. It should be literature as well, for the best stories are litera- ture. Fortunately, there is a great wealth of old stories full of truth and fancy, and couched in language which in choice and arrangement of words erects solid standards for the child. Primitive man wove these tales out of his heart to interpret himself, physical nature, and God. Because the child's attitude toward life is so nearly the same as that of primitive man, these stories are the child's "natural soul-food." In them he finds himself. THE PLACE OF THE STORY IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILD I3 In them his own half-formed thoughts and longings are expressed. His free spirit finds its realization in bird- plumage, wishing-caps, magic carpets, and seven-league boots. His wonder and questionings meet and mingle with the wonder and the questionings of the race. His imagination finds satisfaction and expansion in the primi- tive answers to these questions. His love of beauty is satisfied and increased by his glimpses of fairyland. His hunger for adventure is appeased vicariously as he journeys with Jack-the-Giant-Killer, Robin Hood, St. George, or any other of the splendid company of unconquerable heroes. His sense of justice is satisfied and intensified through the inevitable law of the tale that good is rewarded and evil punished. His faith is fixed that somehow, some- where, things always come out right for the one who has done his best. Courage, kindness, and helpfulness are made beautiful to him through the deeds of the heroes he most admires. It is through these great old stories that his attitudes toward life are fixed. Dr. Stanley Hall says: ''Let me tell the stories and I care not who writes the textbooks." Stories broaden and interpret the child's own experience. They introduce him to the world of interesting fact. They enlarge his vocabulary and give him added power of self-expression. They kindle his imagination. They deepen his apprecia- tion of the beautiful. They stimulate moral discrimina- tions. They counteract the baser sights and sounds of the street or in the ''movies." They awaken his sym- pathies and increase his sense of social relationships. They lift him out of the commonplace. They carry him 14 children's stories and how to tell them to foreign strands. They quicken his sense of humor. They present to him ideals. They give him *' dramatic joy." It is through stories that a foundation is laid for full and efficient living. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. If you believe that it is possible to over-emphasize the story in the life of the child, show how. 2. Illustrate how some children lead story-Hves. If you have personally had any such experience, give it. 3. In leading story-lives, do children confine their fancies and little dramas to stories they have heard, or do they also invent? 4. What did Plato mean when he said that the way to teach the child truth was to teach him fiction? 5. Can you cite any definite instance showing the value that has come to a child by telling him stories? GRIST FROM OTHER MILLS HELPFUL BOOKS The Appreciation of Literature, George Edward Woodberry, Chapters I and VII. What Can Literature Do for Me? C. Alphonso Smith. Aims of Literary Study, Hiram D. Corson. Literature in the Elementary Schools, Porter Lander Mac- Clintock, Chapter II. Story-Telling, Edna Lyman, Chapter on "The Responsibility of Society for What Children Read." Note : It is suggested that from the foregoing books, as well as from this chapter, the student make a list of the various services which the story may perform for the child. For example, Edward Porter St. John, in his Stories and Story- Telling, gives seven aims of story-telHng : THE PLACE OF THE STORY IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILD 1 5 "1. To add to the pleasure of those who Hsten, including making a lesson attractive. 2. To seek to introduce children to the best literature. 3. For use in connection with language study. 4. For general intellectual training. 5. For illustrating some unfamiliar truth. 6. For culture of the imagination. 7. With the aim of influencing conduct and character." "To make the child feel intensely the strivings of others, and to make him feel the light and shades of feeling in many a live situation is to give him an opportunity for moral training and an exhortation to be good." — E. N. AND G. E. Partridge, Story-Telling in School and Home. "And how much capable mothers might derive from Words- worth's poetry for the spiritual nurture of their children. Capable mothers are, alas! comparatively few; but forces are now at work which are increasing the number of such mothers, and will continue to increase it more and more as the ideals of true woman- hood are more and more realized and exalted. — Hiram D. Corson, The Voice and Spiritual Education. "The highest use of all literature is not to fill us with facts, but to set us to thinking. We teach the children history not half so much in order that they may know, and always remember, things that have happened, as that they may understand life, and how to meet it. We repeat poetry to the little ones and tell them fairy tales, not merely to amuse them^, nor as an exercise for the memory, but as a stimulus to the imagination and to the aesthetic sense. The Old Testament stories serve both these pur- poses. The spontaneous instincts of the child, and the almost equally spontaneous revelations of human nature in these stories, correspond one to another as face answers to face in water. The perpetual splendor of sentences in the Old Testament, the lofty sublimity of its suggestions, appeal to the sensuous nature of the child as no other literature does; and there is no nobler endowment of a well-bom and well-bred human being than a rich sensuous nature." — Louise Seymour Houghton, Telling Bible Stories. CHAPTER III HOW STORIES DEVELOP THE PERSONALITY Every race has its heritage of folk-tales and myths that have a far larger meaning than the mere entertainment of the young. Scientists study these stories of the past with painstaking care, because they reveal the genius of the people. Not only do they reflect the ideals which have shaped the social and religious life, but they have shaped those ideals and have given them form and power. As factors in molding character, the stories of the gods are not less important than the rites of worship. — Edward Porter St. John, Stories and Story-Telling. The stories that charm the merry and the serious moods of child and man alike, transporting each to the lands of yesterday, today, or never-was, express as many varying conceptions of life as varying minds are capable of enter- taining. Yet these views of life are by no means clearly recognized by all those who act upon them, for many an ideal, whether base or high, is only hazily present in the mind, while yet being clear enough to influence vital choices and actions subconsciously. Thus only a few of the many who enjoy a story have either the ability or the inclination to see in it a crystallization of the facts of life and man's attitude toward those facts. Nevertheless, each story that is worth hearing or reading does really embody a part of our idea of what life means to mankind. This power of the story to express our ideals and to affect their character is as old as the idea of story-telling, HOW STORIES DEVELOP THE PERSONALITY 1 7 and that is so old that primitive man practiced it in his first effort to adorn the account of some encounter with an enemy, man or beast. ^ Daily, and in surprising ways, the alert observer may see how the development of the individual parallels the progress of the race from its beginnings ^ — only, the child, the youth, the adult, takes with a casual step whole ascents which cost humanity ages of steady climbing to overpass. Pressed not too far, this truth has value when we plan and carry out educational processes for either home, school, or recreation center, particularly as we come to see its bearing on the use of fiction in the development of per- sonality. Just as the story bore its part in race-progress, so does it both assist in and mark out the growth of per- sonality in the child — and even in the adult — as will presently appear. A basis for this belief may be found in the fact that stories which are in essence one — like "Cinderella," which dates at least from Strabo — have appeared with more or less variation from early times down to the present, among many nations. This well-known fact shows not so much that one people gives its stories to another, as that all peoples share commonly, though of course in different measure, certain fundamental emotions, desires, and con- ceptions of life. And so do all children, and hence all grown-ups. 1 Those who wish to trace the origins of fiction will find abun- dant material in .4 History of Prose Fiction, J. C. Dunlop; The Evolution of Literature, A. S. Mackenzie; The Book of the Short Story, Alexander Jessup and Henry Seidel Canby, and other works available in any large library, * See Chapter XIII, "Folk and Fairy Stories." 1 8 children's stories and how to tell them Stories Express the Hopes of Mankind A very little thought will enable any of us to find a score and more of elemental ideas to illustrate the state- ment made in the foregoing heading. Primitive man felt the futility of his struggle against the physical forces of cold, darkness, hunger, thirst, weariness, disease and death, just as we of today may become disheartened in our battles against the subtler powers of disappointment, the dis- loyalty of others and our own moral weaknesses. Try as he might, one or another of these mysterious powers of nature defeated his desires. His crude inventions of fire- places, lights, beds, medicines, stored food and drink — all left him vanquished in the contest; and even today, after ages of devising, this battle with Nature still is waging. What, then, could be more natural in such circumstances than that our prehistoric forebears should dream of a sun- hero whose shafts of eternal light could put to death the dragon of darkness; or of a goddess of plenty whose cornucopia poured out fruits in abundance; or of a being from the air whose magic was strong to stay death and heal all hurts? In some such way, it seems, the first myths arose, and grew and changed with much telling until they became comparatively fixed. And so today we turn oftenest to those stories that embody our hopes — even hopes that at times we have called dead. Man still finds in his fictions — and in his true stories — what Dr. Partridge^ has called "an effort to obtain vicarious satisfaction from an unyielding world." ^ Story-Telling in School and Home, E. N. and G. E. Partridge. HOW STORIES DEVELOP THE PERSONALITY 1 9 The work-weary mother loses herself, but really finds her ideal self, in the happy outcome of a story that brings rest out of labors, and is a solvent for the same sort of worry that has eaten into her own soul. We need only analyze our own experiences to multiply examples of how in the story-world we find what our ancestors near and remote used to find in fictional creations, whether their own or told by others— the satisfaction that life has denied, or has seemed to deny, to them. It is not only children who lead story-fives — blessed anodynes for real cares! Even the minority who have a melancholy joy in stories that end in disaster and ruin feel themselves to suffer the losses of the victim of perfidy, of trickery, of Nature, of fate, for it is a satisfaction to be able to pity ourselves cordially — a very human satisfaction, albeit not a lofty nor a strengthening one. So we find in this state of mind no exception to what appears to be a general experience — that stories hold our interest because they transport us to a realm where things work out in somewhat the way that seems to us to be typical of life, either as it is or as we should like it to be. Have you never when a child gone to bed smarting under a real or fancied injustice and fallen asleep picturing your- self a powerful noble, at last come to your own, and in a lordly way forgiving — or perhaps punishing — the humili- ated author of that wrong against you? Children naturally take to the idea of poetic justice and readily fictionize the outcome of slights and favors. But before we apply this trait to character training we must consider two other foundation principles. The first of these — closely related to the truth just illustrated, that stories express the hopes of mankind — is this: Stories Often Lead the Hearer to Form Moral Judgments The place of the moral in the story — or rather the importance of not drawing an obvious moral in story- telling — must be touched on later, but here let us say that this, one of the chief educational values of story-telling, takes care of itself in the conscience of the child if the story is well arranged and adequately told. As soon as children come to the stage when they begin to distinguish between good and bad, generous and selfish, kind and cruel conduct in themselves and others, they involuntarily feel more or less clear reactions from the conduct of the story-people who are presented to them.* This part of the problem of the story-teller, therefore, is to select such stories as will lead the child to form sound moral judg- ments, rightly approving or condemning the actions of characters — in most cases without his uttering a word. To excite such discriminations is a subtle function of the story-teller, and a vital one. Not all stories, of course, will serve this end — to try to make them do so will defeat the end of pure pleasure in many a good tale. From our own grown-up experiences we can draw many illustrations. A vicious novel is one that makes vice alluring; a wholesome story may paint evil reaHstically, ^Froebel has called this "the judgment of the feelings," which often operates quite independently of the judgment of the intellect. HOW STORIES DEVELOP THE PERSONALITY 21 yet delicately we are led to see not only its enormity but its consequences, and that without a single word of preach- ment. Just so moral judgments — not at all necessarily on great questions — are inevitably formed in the spirit of the child by hearing such stories as David and Goliath, Reynard the Fox, and others that raise issues of conduct. Stories Stimulate All the Mental and Moral Processes It is enough merely to state the principle at this point, as it will be dwelt upon in later chapters. Think it over a few moments, however, to see how wide is its applica- tion. Consider, for example, how sense-appeal in stories that deal with color, or sound, or touch, or taste, or smell, may be just as educational as emotional appeal, of what- ever sort. The story, let it be remembered, may excite any sort of reaction which it is skillfully planned to call forth. The Definite Effects of Fiction on the Personality of the Child First let us see what is meant by personality — though it baJSles definition. It is that which marks an individual as being himself and not another. Therefore it is known by its manifestations. It is the blended force of "What Is," "What Thinks," "What Wills" and "What Does" that, to paraphrase Robert Browning, constitutes the man. Personality is both positive and negative in its nature. It leads to action or it inhibits action. A boy, say, is self- willed, selfishly tenacious of his own, and cares not a whit 22 children's stories and how to tell them for the good opinion of others — except that he is pained when his mother is sad. He begins to show ideals of honor, but he has a somewhat warped personal code, by which whatever affects his own happiness and that of his mother are his sole standards of good and bad. It must be plain that stories — which subtly creep into his mind and there set up ideals of conduct — will either confirm this lad in his bent or gradually shake his childish conviction that it is good (which to him means satisfying) to think and act as he does. The problem, then, is to find, modify or invent not only one story but a number that will — not too obviously — show, and not formally say, that a lad's mother is deeply hurt by a self-willed son; that the child who considers others prepares happiness for himself and others; that strength and the joy of doing things come by showing ourselves indifferent to what lessens or increases merely our own pain, and being regardful of the things that make others happy, and therefore finally ourselves content. To develop personality in the child by story-telHng means, first, to implant proper ideals by showing that a certain course of conduct brings happiness, as well as by showing through the action of the story and its ending that wrong ideals lead to various unhappy results. The child begins by being a hedonist — that is, he is deeply moved to action by the idea of happiness — and this notion will never entirely leave him. How to harmonize this ideal of personal happiness with the happiness and well- being of others is really the problem of life, and we must attack it cautiously from the start — cautiously, lest we HOW STORIES DEVELOP THE PERSONALITY 23 teach him the mischievous doctrine that man's chief end is to attain happiness, whatever be the means. Further, personahty is developed by those stories that lead to action. What we all need in greater measure is dynamic personality. It is not enough that the child be led to form judgments as to what is right or wrong in the actions of the story-people — he must be inspired to do things: inspired by example, excited by the allurement of the possible, led out of himself by stories of achievement. Motor-reaction stories are important factors in bringing about this action-mood in the mind of the child, and this field is simply tremendous in its possibilities. When a story seizes hold of the imagination its power for good — or for evil — is unspeakable. Think how an unworthy motive may be inhibited and a noble one substituted by the story of ''White Fang," re-told for children. Let this purpose of supplying dynamic to the personahty be promi- nent in all your story-telling. But there are many other phases of personality, as we see upon a little reflection, and all these may be moved upon by the story. The morbid, brooding child may be allured from over-sensitiveness, the stolid awakened, the shallow deepened, and the morally obtuse quickened in all that we call conscience. From this no one, of course, will hastily assume that the development of personality is altogether or even chiefly a matter of story-telling. In this book the authors are laying emphasis on the story as being one, and only one, important element in child-culture. The wise guardian of the child will constantly coordinate the whole regimen 24 of training — physical, social, intellectual, moral — so that the story may illustrate and teach the very standards of what is good that are being set up and enforced by other means of teaching, in home, school, and elsewhere. The Effect of Fiction on the Story-Teller How vital is the bearing of story-preference upon the growth of personality in the adult I Whatever a man loves, he is — potentially, and often actually. And because the fiction we read reacts so vitally upon our own characters, the parent, the nurse, the teacher, the temporary guardian, whose privilege it is to tell a story to a child, owes a primary obligation to herself to select for her own reading a type of fiction that tends to develop in her a worthy personaUty. However deeply the mother, actual or expectant, may be interested in books of sex-struggle, crime, and sordid atmosphere, certainly she should ask herself whether it would not be better for her child were its mother to fill her mind — and that does involve all her hopes and ideals — with thoughts of brightness, victory, and purity. How can there be a divided answer to this question? Obviously, we do not urge that a story-teller's reading should be namby-pamby, for stories that teach a robust, upUfting philosophy are anything but sugar coated; it is important, however, that room be given — yes, made — ^in the story-teller's heart for fiction that illustrates the worth- whileness of man's struggle for purity, honesty, and all the best things; that shows that inner victory is more im- portant than outward success when that success is denied; HOW STORIES DEVELOP THE PERSONALITY 2$ and that leaves us with the feeling that good is more powerful than evil. We who tell stories to little ones have no right to allow acid books to make our spirits rheumatic, and if we cannot read them — as most people cannot — without at least insensibly drawing in their taint, they had better be discarded for stories of hope and brave spirit. The very first demand that the race may and ought to make upon its story-tellers is that they develop in them- selves a personality whose charm and optimistic vigor is worth transmitting in the stories they tell to others, young or old. Every line of the foregoing implies that if in any degree pessimistic and sordid fiction may not harm the story- teller it will be entirely due to the reaction by which a healthy nature throws off the depressing — an experience that is by no means universal. But a child is not so con- stituted, for its personality is as yet undeveloped, or may be already beginning to develop in wrong directions. What care, then, should be given to choosing for the little ones those stories which suggest right ideals, move them to wise choices, and inspire them vigorously to good action ! SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. Take any Greek myth and, applying the principle sug- gested in this chapter, show how it might naturally have arisen. See Myths and Myth Makers, John Fiske; Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Sir G. W. Cox; A History of Prose Fiction, J. C. Dunlop. 2. How might a prehistoric parent have invented a story to serve as a physical warning example to his child? Try to recon- struct the circumstances. 26 3. Similarly, reconstruct the circumstances in which an ancient hunter might have told of his exploit. 4. Show how such an exploit would be embroidered until the doer of the deed passed down in tribal history as a super-man, a demi-god, or even a god. 5. Write a brief account of the professional story-teller of ancient times. 6. Why do we find the same fundamental stories in many different lands? 7. Why are many such stories still current today? 8. Illustrate from your own experience how a favorite story often represents our hopes and our views of life. 9. In your own observation, and not as a matter of theory, do you believe that a person's preferences in fiction indicate his ideals? Why? 10. Adduce any reasons, further than those suggested in this chapter, to show that preferences in fiction influence personality in the adult, 11. Show by example how stories will affect the personality in the child. 12. Select one or two stories that are calculated to affect the personality dynamically. 13. Select a class of stories, or one in particular, that should produce some other definite effect — naming the effect, or reaction. 14. After studying this chapter, add to the list of functions of the story, as called for in the questions appended to Chapter II. 15. Discuss Forbush's statement that "The story is helpful . because it helps the child to will what is good." GRIST FROM OTHER MILLS For the Story Teller, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, contains short but good chapters on " The Apperceptive Basis of Story- Telling " and " The Story with a Sense Appeal." She says: "We will study stories, then, asking ourselves: What emotion does this story stimulate? By its unpleasant situations and images. HOW STORIES DEVELOP THE PERSONALITY 27 does it inspire fear in a child ? Does it make a child happy because cf its bubbling good humor? Does it create .... sympathy, courage, grief, anger, malice, charity, temperance? Each one of these states of feeling is characterized by bodily expression and we can almost mold character, and influence a child's future life-activity, by means of the stories which we tell him." " To me the mourning-dove has always seemed a sacred bird, and although I could have killed thousands of them, I have never taken the life of one. When a very small boy at my mother's knee she related to me the story of the winged messenger sent out by Noah to look for real estate. She told me that doves were innocent and harmless birds, and that I must never wrong one in the least. Had my good mother issued an injunction covering the whole animal kingdom, I think I would have grown up as harmless to animals as any Hindoo ; for her solemn charge regard- ing mourning-doves has always seemed as binding as the Ten Commandments. I mention this in order to point out to parents and teachers the vast influence they may easily wield in behalf of our wild creatures, which are in sore need of protection." — William T. Hornaday, American Natural History. CHAPTER IV THE BASIS OF SELECTION OF CHILDREN'S STORIES The imagination of the pupil can be led by means of the classical works of creative imagination to the formation of a good taste both as regards ethical merit and beauty of form. The proper classical works for youth are those which nations have produced in the childhood of their culture. These works bring the children face to face with the picture of the world which the human mind has sketched for itself in one of the necessary stages of develop- ment. —J. K. F. RosENCRANTZ, Philosophy of Education, In preceding chapters, as we have disclosed the functions of the story as a developer of young lives, we have seen why stories should be told to children. Now we must examine the kinds of stories that may wisely be brought before them, and approximately when. Society is much concerned over questions of fresh air, food, and all phases of bodily well-being. These problems are fundamental and deserve the consideration they receive, but it seems time that more attention be given to the mental food of children. The physician who would permit a child under his care to be underfed or given sweetmeats to the exclusion of wholesome diet would be justly condemned, but the father who holds his newspaper with one hand and with the other gives his child a nickel for the moving-picture show, reads on with untroubled conscience. He feels no concern that the child goes out THE BASIS OF SELECTION OF CHILDREN'S STORIES 29 from home to have his mind filled with cheap melodrama, with love stories which force his attention to aspects of life beyond his years, with low "horse-play," and often with attempts at humor based upon life's supreme trage- dies. "The people muth be amuthed," declared the inimitable Sleary, and no one would dispute it, but it is a grave mistake to permit a child to become dependent upon being amused. Nervous, restless adults who cannot endure a moment alone are the product of these early years of over-excitement and of mental starvation. They have no richness of life within themselves, no reserve of thought-power, no dream-stuff out of which to build a world. They have not received their heritage of the spiritual thought of the race which is embodied in great literature, simple though its form may be. The throb of life is so intense today that there is more need than ever for the balance of poise and calm which comes from the friendship with books. The parent who is wise enough to give his children regularly a few hours of association with himself, betimes reenforcing his own personaUty with the lasting thoughts expressed in story, poem or drama, is not only giving them wholesome amuse- ment, but is giving meaning to home, forming life- standards, building power, both for them and for himself. There are too few parents, as well as too few teachers, who are alive to their responsibilities in these questions of invigorating food for growing minds. Magazines which exploit the mental debauchery of over-stimulated neurotics are permitted to make their inroads upon the emotions of the adolescent boy and girl. Other magazines, 30 children's stories and how to tell them with their milk-and-water sentimentaHsm, form the only reading in many homes. The result is flabby, emasculated brains which are unable to think clearly, and which go down before real situations. It is a truism that "Medi- ocrity breeds mediocrity — evil produces evil." For this reason, there is an obligation upon the home and the school to bring to the children the best in literature. The basis of selection of children's literature is two- fold: I. The Child Himself as a Basis This, of course, means his general and his personal characteristics, his needs, his stage of development, and his personal background of experience. Second, the essentials of good literature will come in for consideration. While each child differs as an individual from every other child, there are also certain quahties which he has in common with all children. The most evident of these universal characteristics is activity. All higher animal life, as well as all mental life, expresses and develops itself through action. The normal, healthy child is doing some- thing every waking moment. He is investigative and curious. He is imaginative, living much in a world of make-believe. He has a sense of the dramatic. He is interested in all that has life and feels a sense of kinship with, and an understanding of, every living thing. He is sympathetic. His emotions are easily stirred and frankly expressed. He has a feeling for rhythm and an instinctive love of beauty. All these phases of his nature should 31 find expression in his literature, therefore a consideration of all the foregoing universal characteristics, supplemented with individual experience, should guide in the selection of his stories — that is, the story should be such as will feed, yet not over-feed, these traits. It should be remem- bered, too, that these characteristics of child-nature persist through the adolescent period with varying emphasis according to the stage of development. In many of its aspects childhood remains long after it super- ficially seems to have departed. Bear in mind that not age hut stage of progress must govern in choosing the story for the child. The very young child lives in the immediate present. He is dominated by a single imperative motive. He sees things in the concrete. He cannot reason farther than from cause to immediate effect nor follow subtle and in- volved relationships; therefore the language of his stories should be simple, the plot uninvolved. He is fascinated v/ith the sound of words, and for this reason it is particu- larly important that his literature be presented orally. This love of sound, together with his sense of rhythm, makes the Mother Goose Rhymes, and stories in which there is repetition, the logical beginning of his literature. "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!" "Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Ginger Bread Man!" "Good day. Cocky Locky," and like phrases, fill him with glee. As the child's experience broadens and his mental power increases — say, not too definitely, at the normal age of four or four-and-a-half — the content of his stories should 32 children's stories and how to tell them advance in proportion to his development. The rhymes lead into poetry, the cumulative and repetition stories give place to the animal stories. In these his feeling of kinship with all life finds happy expression. His own experience is repeated in fanciful form through the animals endowed with human faculties. For instance, The Three Bears live in a house, use tables, chairs and beds just as he does. They are father, mother and baby — his own famiUar relationships. They talk together in language he understands, and another child shares the adventure. Thus The Billy Goats Gruff, Puss in Boots, The White Cat, The Three Little Pigs, The Cock and The Hen, and Bre'r Rabbit become his favorite com- panions. Again, as his concepts increase and widen still more, his orderly imaginative power grows greater. His sense of the dramatic becomes more keen. At the age of about six — and of course in some instances earlier, for it must be reiterated that it is quite impossible to parcel out the stages of child-development by years — fairy tales come to have first place in his affections. In them his love of beauty, his sense of the mysterious and the supernatural, find satisfaction. His interest in the power of unseen forces is deepened. The impressions of vital truths are stamped upon him, for the great fairy tales always em- body truths which primitive man discovered about him- self, about nature, about God. The poetic fancy, the wonder, the elemental passions of the race, are woven into the old fairy and wonder tales. They nourished the strong adventurous spirit of the world. They are the record of THE BASIS OF SELECTION OF CHILDREN S STORIES 33 the emotions, the social conscience, the purpose of the race. It is a true instinct which leads the child to choose them as his ''natural soul food." ^ Thus from the age of six, throughout the early adolescent period, or up to ten and even twelve, the child "with insistent persuasion leads us back to the morning-time of literature." Along with the fairy tales, the love of the hero develops. The fairy prince, the dauntless youngest son, lead naturally to the semi-mythic hero. The great race-heroes of the epics, Robin Hood, King Arthur and his Knights, thrill the ten-year-old and set him dreaming of heroic deeds. But at this age, romance should be supplemented with fact-stories. The biographical hero, history stories, nature stories, begin to form a wonder world as fascinating as the fairy world has been. This blending of chivalry, romance and fact should be continued through the middle years of the adolescent period. If the foundation of right choice is carefully developed through the years from babyhood to sixteen, the result will be felt not only in the matter of taste for good reading, but the boy or girl will have a more wholesome, more vigorous attitude toward life. The sentimentality, the weakness, the absolute falsity which pervade the books read by the average student leaving high school, if he reads at all, may account in great measure for some of the most serious problems of American life today; and, in a prior way, is accounted for largely by misdirected, or absence of, early story- training. The bearing of early training on taste for stories 1 See Chapter XIII, "Folk and Fairy Stories. 34 in adolescence is most vital. ''Many a moral victory, like many a battle field, is won or lost before the actual struggle has begun. The battle is decided in the pre- liminary skirmish by contending mental images. If the child is stocked up with virtuous and inspiring mental images, through stories, his imagination is already cap- tured by goodness." ^ 2. Literary Quality as a Basis The presentation of vigorous, wholesome images is a characteristic of the best literature. "Literature," says Dr. McVannell, *'is the expression, in words of truth and beauty, of man's consciousness of the significant and enduring values of experience — personal, national, uni- versal." Courage, power to endure, abihty to overcome Hmitations, a spirit of fair play, faithfulness, unselfishness, tenderness, love and service are some of the achievements of man's spirit in his process of development. The best literature sounds the changes on these dominant notes in the symphony of character, and thus sets up ideals of both character and conduct. The expression of phases of these ideals constitutes the varieties of true literature — that is, literature expresses in artistic form the highest which the human spirit knows. Therefore children's stories must be selected with such standards well in mind. Stories which are full of senti- mentality, which ''talk-down" to him, pretend, moralize, or present trifling rubbish in the effort to descend to his Manual of Stories, William Byron Forbush. THE BASIS OF SELECTION OF CHILDREN'S STORIES 35 plane of understanding, should be vigorously rejected. The parent, the teacher, or the story-teller who is to guide the choice of the child's mental food should be sure that his own standards are high. He should first enrich his own personality through an understanding of the essential values of literature and of life. The person whose life is colorless, whose emotions are pallid, whose experience is narrow, whose appreciation of beauty is undeveloped, whose knowledge of Hterature is limited, should face squarely the fact that he is not the one to guide the de- velopment of a child. He should kindle the flame in his own life before he attempts to pass on the torch. The child responds instantly to the life-quality, both in the individual and in the story. It is this life-quality which "feeds his soul." Because this vital force is expressed in natural, elemental simpHcity in the old tales which are really Hterature — being great in both content and form— they hold their power over each succeeding generation. However, some adap- tation of these stories would seem wise in order to lessen the effect of the primitive cruelty which is found in many of them. Yet it should be largely a question of emphasis, rather than mere elimination, for the child should not be robbed of the sweep and strength of these great stories. It must be remembered that the child himself does not feel or judge from the point of view of the adult. His angle of vision is far closer to that of primitive man than to that of the cultured man or woman of today. Some educators hold that it is a true impulse which gives nursery lore the slaying of ogres and giants, the punishment of 36 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM wicked stepmothers. However that may be, it is safe to say that no story should be presented which places a premium upon cruelty, or in which trickery and cun- ning are rewarded. It is essential that the higher forces of good predominate and be presented in such a way as to awaken the child's admiration, love, and desire to imitate. But how shall this be done? Those words and deeds, those persons and things, which stir his emotions are more important than the facts which his intellect acquires. One purpose of the story is to enrich the child's emotional life and to furnish an outlet for his feelings. Great care and understanding are needed in this connec- tion. His emotions are simple, strong and quickly ex- pended. His anger rarely persists long enough to desire revenge, his grief is never nursed to morbidity, at least in the normal child; even his love does not survive long absences. No other emotional characteristics will have meaning to him in his literature until well on in his adoles- cent period. "Action, emotion and thought are the three great divisions of life," and they develop in the order mentioned. The very young child thinks little, he acts. He does not analyze, he feels. Hence his stories must contain action and emotion rather than reasoning. They must have vivid picture-quality without wordy passages of description. They must be concise and dramatic. In language and structure they need to adhere to the best literary form. They should appeal to the imagination, inspire love of beauty, and present right ideals. They must mirror his own experience and embody universal truth. THE BASIS OF SELECTION OF CHILDREN'S STORIES 37 One final word must here be said — and it will be reiter- ated later. It has to do with The Mood of the Story -Teller Certainly there can be few times when the narrator is unable to choose the story she is to tell, hence no one can object to the demand that the story-teller should be in sympathy with the story. Good work can no more be done by one on whom the story has not laid its hand in genuine appeal than by an actor who has never been aroused by his part. In either case the audience will be quick to notice the coldness of the speaker, the children first of all. It is better to discard the most highly recommended tale if it does not move you to interest, and tell a story that arouses your sympathy. Sympathy, as we all know, means ''feeling with," and feeling is the absolute basis of all good fiction. There never was an effective story that did not play upon one or more of the emotions — without this quality the narrative would be dead. Yet there is the other side also to consider. An untrained story-teller who is called upon to choose a story for a child will naturally turn to one that suits her own taste. '' Put yourself in his place" — was ever wiser, or more difiicult, injunction laid upon man! Yet it must be done, and the effect upon the child well weighed before a story is chosen for telling. Remember how easy it is to hurt young ideals by giving babes strong meat. Not for children's stories must "true to life" be the sole standard, but true 38 children's stories and how to tell them to truth. None is too young to begin the first lessons in that fine old philosophy — optimism. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. Since apperception is the process of building new concepts upon a foundation of what the mind already knows, how would you go about discovering the child's stage of development so as to avoid, on the one hand, a tiresome repetition of what is famihar and, on the other, stories which are beyond him? 2. What are some of the things which may have given cur- rency to the misconception that good literature can be understood and loved by only the mature and the cultivated ? 3. Are abstruse thoughts at all necessarily characteristic of good literature? 4. Have you at any time had the notion — if not the con- viction — that ' ' literature ' ' and simplicity of language were not harmonious? 5. What do you think now? 6. Can you name an admittedly great work of literature which is written in clear and simple English? 7. What qualities should a literary story for children possess? In answering this question consider both form and content, or substance. 8. Make a list of those characteristics of childhood which are named in this chapter, and add any others which, upon careful thought and observation, seem to you to be present in children generally. 9. What do you understand by a concrete as distinguished from an abstract story? Give an example of each. 10. To what child-periods would the former appeal? The latter? 11. Make several lists of well-known stories for children, saying to what child-periods they are especially adapted. Note: Open discussions of these lists will prove helpful. Do not be guided entirely by the Hsts furnished by authorities, but THE BASIS OF SELECTION OF CHILDREN'S STORIES 39 bring each story to the test of your own knowledge — based on experience, preferably, but if not, on what you have learned of child-nature from books. 12. Has your experience taught you to disagree with any of the generalizations made in this chapter regarding the stages of receptivity to various types of story, as shown by children? If so, be specific in stating your experience, and do not base a generaHzation upon your experience with only one or two children, for the exceptional child, when handled singly, needs exceptional study. Do not be too ready to consider children as a mass — they are individuals, though in some respects they lead a mass Hfe. 13. How openly in a story would you show a young child that it pays to do right, and that wrong-doing brings its penalties? 14. Cite at least one story to illustrate your attitude on the foregoing question. 15. In what kinds of stories do rewards and penalties most promptly follow the deed? 16. For young children, is exaggeration in the proportion of reward to good deed, and of penalty to offence, a justifiable device in fairy, animal and wonder stories? Why? 17. Try to recall the stories which you liked at certain periods of your childhood and youth. Name at least a dozen, assigning some, if you honestly can, to different periods of your develop- ment, with due regard for the over-lapping of interests in adjoin- ing periods. 18. At about what period, have you observed, do boys begin to show different story-preferences from girls? Compare this with their choice of games and occupations. 19. At what periods do the following types of stories make their strongest appeal: (a) adventure? (b) realistic? (c) romantic? 20. At what period does the child begin to question probabili- ties in a story? 21. Try to visit a kindergarten, or some other gathering of children, at the story hour; report the kinds of stories that produced the strongest observable effects. Note especially what 40 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM sorts of children, if any, missed or lost interest in the subtler points of the stories. 22. Make a detailed report, after talking cautiously to as many children as you can, on what stories they like, trying to find out why they like them. You will have to injer most of their reasons. A cooperative study of this sort will prove valuable to a class or group of students. 23. Remember that the results from laboratory, or personal- experience work, will, if based upon enough cases, lead you to more valuable conclusions than if you depend on the teaching of others. Test the appeal made to children and youths of different periods of development of at least some of the following kinds of stories and make notes of the results: (a) stories of altruism; (b) physical bravery of a fictitious hero; (c) moral heroism of a historic or a Biblical character; (d) humorous results of vanity, or some other weakness; (e) some other purpose-story chosen by you. 24. Give a real or a supposititious example of how a special story may be selected so as to meet a special moral or discipHnary need in a group of children, saying to what period of development the children have come. For example, continued disobedience in a group of bright boys of from nine to eleven. 25. Discuss this statement: In good literature, form fits con- tent, and words fit ideas. 26. What effect on the education of the child has the good — not merely the grammatically correct — language-form of a story when told? 27. Make a list of kinds of stories to avoid at different stages of child-development. Be prepared to defend your disapproval in each instance. GRIST FROM OTHER MILLS "The storks have a great many stories which they tell their little ones, all about the bogs and marshes. They suit them to their age and capacity. The young ones are quite satisfied with THE BASIS OF SELECTION OF CHILDREN'S STORIES 4I kribble, krabble, or some such nonsense, and find it charming; but the elder ones want something with more meaning." — Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter. "Experience has taught me that for the group of normal children, irrespective of age, the first kind of story suitable for them will contain an appeal to conditions to which the child is accustomed The next incident that appeals is unusual activities carried on in the usual atmosphere of the child." — Marie L. Shedlock, The Art of the Story-Teller. "If literature is to regain its sway over the heart and its ministry in life, there must be a greater return to the oral and auditory basis of appeal. The book, to be sure, has its own indispensable place and function, but in relation to popular culture, it is the second and not the first place. Because our culture is increasingly eye-minded, it is necessarily less emotionalized and less vital, less joyous and spontaneous." — Percival Chubb, The Blight of Literary Bookishness, in The English Journal, Jan., 1914. CHAPTER V THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY 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. — Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, For the Story-Teller. Happily for the story-teller, no intricate and confusing technique is needed for effective narration to children, notwithstanding the exacting demands of the art. In the magazine short-story for grown-ups we observe mechani- cal processes and devices which at times are far from simple, but the teller of children's stories finds his path more straightforward. Nevertheless, intelligent study and 7nuch practice are necessary for him also if he would master his art. At the outstart only a few simple direc- tions — discoverable for himself, in fact — are needed to set and keep him on the right way, but it is important to THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY 43 remember that story-telling for children demands a serious apprenticeship if worth-while results are to be gained. The Beginning of the Story The telling of many a good story has been handicapped, if not quite defeated, by unnecessary and therefore bad preliminaries. Short fiction knows no more inexorable law than this: Every word that does not help, hinders. How futile it is for a story-teller to gather her hearers and say: ''Now, children, I am going to tell you a lovely story, and I want you all to be ve-e-ry quiet — James, sit up straight! If, when I have finished, you do not say that this is one of the very best stories you have ever heard, I shall be very much disappointed" — and more irritating indirectness, plentifully sprinkled with very's. The way to begin is to begin. If the opening does not command interest no story-teller can demand it. Let there be no formal introduction — that is, no audi- ble laying of foundations, no exposition of facts and con- ditions that took place prior to the story. Plunge in. The best opening brings before the child in one or two short, vivid sentences one or more of the leading charac- ters in the story and shows him or them in an interesting situation. But what is interest? It is that which sends the mind forward in a swift leap of expectation. ''Something is going to happen!" we feel subconsciously; or, "That's queer!" or, "How did that come to be?" In short, the good story-opening not only points forward to action but actually begins the action. 44 children's stories and how to tell them But the effective opening does more: It also establishes a setting in a word or two. In a word or two? Precisely. The magazine fiction writer, who often gives whole para- graphs to setting, might profit by the condensed, sugges- tive art of the children's story-teller. The setting of the EHzabethan stage was, as we all know, a very simple thing — the fancy of the hearer-spectator supplied the scene by pure evocation. And so does the child call forth his own pictures of background. True, not all youngsters have seen a forest, and fewer still an ice cave, but in these days of printed pictures and universal cine- matography the range of setting known to the average of children is astonishingly wide, so that, "Once there was an ugly little dwarf who kept his horse in a freezing cold ice cave" will at once evoke a satisfactorily clear picture. Learn the value of suggestion in drawing the setting, and do not be too precise. Children quickly grasp com- parisons. "Jack lived in a cottage whose front yard was just large enough for Bruno to turn round in three times," is more stimulating to the imagination than either the bare adjective "small," or the worse device of "twenty feet square." The child is full of imagery — and so must the story be. Let your nouns and verbs be clear and picturesque, then will adjectives and adverbs be less overworked. The opening will often suggest the mood of the story. Is it to be a "real" story, a fairy tale, a myth, a wonder legend, a story of rollicking fun? — the beginning may well answer the question by striking a clear tone. THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY 45 Let US see from the following openings how these Jour purposes: the introduction of one or more of the characters in an interesting situation, the beginning of the action, the suggestion of a setting, and the establishment of a mood — are in whole or in part accomplished by skillful story- tellers. At the same time we shall be interested in no- ticing some of the variations of the old ''Once upon a time" opening, and in observing some other devices of language. A SAGA In the grey beginnings of the world, or [before] ever the flower of justice had rooted in the heart, there lived among the daughters of men two children, sisters, of one house. ' — John Russell. THE SILVER SHILLING There was once a shilling which came forth from the mint springing and shouting, "Hurrah! Now I am going out into the wide world," — Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy Tales. ' . THE ELEPHANT'S CHILD In the High and Far Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, nad too trunk. f — RuDYARD Kipling, Just So Stories. THE WOODPECKER Once upon a time, longer than long ago, when the good St. Peter walkfed about the earth looking to see how men lived, he came one day to the door of a cottage where an old woman was baking cakes. — Old Legend. THE WHITE HARE AND THE CROCODILES Long, long ago, when all the animals could talk, there lived in the province of Inaba, in Japan, a little white hare. His 46 children's stories and how to tell them home was on the island of Oki, and just across the sea was the mainland of Inaba. Now the hare wanted very much to cross over to Inaba. — OzAKi, The Japanese Fairy Book. THE RUISENOR (NIGHTINGALE) Huacani was curious. He wanted to go with his friend Vago- niona to visit the Caves of Souls; it was forbidden to visit these and he knew this was so, yet he was determined to visit the mysterious caverns. — Florence J. Stoddard, As Old as the Moon. THE STORY OF THE BEAUTIFUL ONE WHO DID NOT HAVE HER DESIRE The narrator of tales relates that, once upon a time, there lived a man and his wife who were so poor that they had no home. So the woman begged of her husband to seek a place for her in the hamam, or bath house. Now, the bamam was a large building, with many rooms. When the bamamjy, or keeper, had listened to the tale of the poor man he answered: "There will be room for your wife tomorrow. Let her come then." — IzoRA Chandler and Mary W. Montgomery, Told in the Gardens of Araby. THE ROSE AND THE THRUSH There was none other in the quiet valley so happy as the rose-tree, — none other so happy unless perchance it was the thrush who made his home in the linden yonder. The thrush loved the rose-tree's daughter, and he was happy in thinking that some day she would be his bride. — Eugene Field, The Holy Cross and Other Tales. THE WONDERFUL BIRCH Once upon a time there were a man and a woman, who had an only daughter. Now it happened that one of their sheep went astray, and they set out to look for it, and searched, each in a different part of the wood. Then the good wife met a witch, etc. — Andrew Lang, The Red Fairy Book. THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY 47 THE SELFISH GIANT Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden. — Oscar Wilde, The Happy Princess. THE LITTLE RABBIT WHO WANTED RED WINGS Once upon a time there was a little White Rabbit with two beautiful long pink ears and two bright red eyes and four soft Httle feet — such a pretty little White Rabbit, but he wasn't happy. — Southern Folk Tale. The Body of the Story It is immediately after the opening that the children's story shows its most marked difference from the present- day magazine story, therefore it seems needful to establish briefly one or two distinctions. The tale may be compared to a chain, each link of which is an event, an incident, a step forward in the sequence of the narrative. So a tale does not have a plot — by which, roughly, we mean a tying up of the action of the story in such a way as to produce a crisis (or difficulty, or obstacle, or interruption) in the affairs of at least one of the characters, following which is an exhibition of the resulting struggle, and then the more or less surprising outcome, or denouement. A simple plot may be illustrated by a capital Y, or an inverted y — A, or an X. The point where all lines meet is the focus of the "clash of wills," the contest of inter- ests, the struggle against material or immaterial opposi- tion. The lines indicate either the divided or the united courses of the characters either before or after the crucial 48 struggle. Plot is one essential element of the short-story as distinguished from the tale. Really, there is no such thing as a short-story — as distinguished from the plotless tale — unless we have a plot, however simple that plot may be. Children's stories generally have simple plots, and nearly all of them contain a struggle, with its outcome, but in this field complicated plots are a rarity, even in continued fairy stories like those written by Mr. Andrew Lang. All in all, the tale — the chain of incidents that might be continued indefinitely without altering the course of the action and so might be ended anywhere — is a frequent form of the story told to children, but the best children's stories contain plots of a simple sort. It is difficult for small children to keep in mind the several threads of a complicated plot, though they are always interested in simple plots, such as when the hero meets a difficulty and some friendly animal or fairy shows him a way out, which he follows in a course zigzagging be- tween success and failure until at last he attains his goal. Really, this is the course of the novel, but with that we are not now concerned. Directness in the presentation of a series of scenes is the first method to be followed. There must be no digres- sions or side trips {episodes) in the well-told children's story. However great may be the temptation to make pleasing little excursions by the way, the narrator must sternly bear in mind Mr. Kipling's whimsical remark, "But that is another story." Interest soon wanders afield at the first inviting break in the hedge, and THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY 49 then how shall we come happily to the end of the road? For the foregoing reason it is rarely if ever wise to ask the children questions while a story is being told, or to allow them to interrupt with questions. The well- prepared story will answer all necessary questions as it goes along. Even if every point cannot be briefly made clear to every child, do not stop to elaborate. Have not you yourself experienced the joy of sudden understanding of some passage in a story or a poem learned in child- hood, the full meaning of which was long denied to your mind? Besides, it will not do to ignore the fancy of the child, which is marvellously equipped to paint its own pictures, if only you give it the imaginary background. Sometimes an unintentional digression is suggested by the narrator when an absorbing situation in a story is touched upon and left without having any real part in the story. Here is an example in point: "And Eric went on and on until he came to a black rabbit with four glass feet and a silk hat, but he didn't stop there" — though the child's mind is likely to. That which does not help, hinders — let this maxim be repeated. The story-teller introduced the funny bunny merely as an ornament, with the result that it proved to be a distraction. Since the well-told story is a carefully considered se- quence of pictorial scenes, each leading naturally into its successor, the straight-ahead course of the story must not be interrupted by the introduction of many, if any, matters that require explanation. The story is to be sug- gestive, not exhaustive. Examine any good fairy story and see how like a scenario it is in parts. Everything is 50 swiftly — almost casually — done. Events which in a story for grown-ups would require elaboration are passed over "just like that," because the child-mind leaps forward to what comes next with impatience of minute explanation. Children either sense what is conveyed in a few swift words, fining in the imagined sketch by their own light- ning strokes of fancy, or they weary of the tedious recital. Just as explanations are bad, so are too many details. The child would rather have repetition than confusing minutiae. Take for example the constant use of threes in the fairy tale. Note how a pleasing sense of expec- tancy and recognition are developed in the listener as the wanderer first meets a hermit in a brown cloak, who sends him on to a second hermit in a brown cloak, who in turn sends him to a third hermit in a brown cloak with a green hood. This variety in unity at once suggests a crisis and a change. Trace out this use of threes, with all manner of varia- tions, and you have possessed yourself of one of the funda- mental structural forms of the fairy tale. Plausibility and motivation need careful consideration, for they go hand in hand. By the former we mean that, given a certain state of affairs, the outcome should be consistent; by the latter, that an adequate motive must be either shown or implied for every important act — the say-so of the narrator is not convincing when an im- portant point is not plausible. Amateur story-tellers often assume that a fairy story or a wonder tale gives them carte blanche for the intro- duction of all manner of events, whether impossible or THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY 5 1 improbable. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Plausibility is not offended when we meet a rabbit with four glass feet, because at once we accept this as an evidence that we are in a wonderland where anything may be true, so long as — and here is the real demand of plausibility — he acts as such a strange creature would. Suppose, for example, that the rabbit should run a thorn in his foot — we resent this as impossible; but let him crack his left hind foot by knocking it against a stone, and we believe it, so to say, for the foot is glass. At the same time we may find in this instance an ex- ample of good motivation. Eric meets the rabbit weeping its silk hat full of tears. At once we want to know why he is weeping. The lad stops in wonder, and hears about bunny's accident — all the facts are thus linked and the way is open for Eric to tell the rabbit how to have his foot mended, and the future interweaving of their for- tunes is merely a matter of invention; we have had both plausibility and motivation. Crisis is constantly met with in children's stories — crisis in the form of an "impossible" task with a severe penalty for failure; crisis in the shape of formidable opposition in the pursuit of a quest; crisis in the person of an enemy, natural or supernatural, the overcoming of whom brings victory for the hero. Suspense^ a vital quality in all absorbing stories, grows out of crisis. Will the Prince succeed? The answer is deferred through a series of efforts and sub-efforts, re- buffs, failures, promised victories, and still another failure — until the listener fairly throbs for fear that the needed 52 help may not come in time to allow the Prince to put the wicked Witch to rout and so break the enchantment of the lovely Princess. Climax is the high point in the action of the story. It comes just when the struggle, having reached its height, can grow no more intense, and reward comes to the hero or heroine, or both. To lead a story zigzagging up the course to this climacteric point — each successive scene definitely marking an advance or an intentional recession — is the acme of story-telling, worth study and patient effort. Let no master-story hereafter be read without noting by what alternately advancing and re- ceding steps the climax is reached. So many devices are possible by which the hearer may be held in suspense while he is being led on to the outcome that the new- comer in the story-telling field need not fear that all the good stories have been told. But not only in wonder-tales must the several elements just considered be given a place, for in every good story they are inherent. The story-teller who is ambitious to excel would do well first to analyze a considerable num- ber of stories to see how these factors are worked, then try using them in re-telling old stories, and finally learn to handle them effectively in original narration. The End of the Story The swiftest endings of all fictional forms, excepting the anecdote, are those of children's stories. Indeed, in many stories the high point, or climax, is the ending itself, though in others a final line is added to round off THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY 53 the tale. But when you are through, stop. Antidimax here means a painful let-down of interest. REYNARD AND BRUIN When he got to his den the Fox asked each of his limbs how they had helped him in his flight. His nose said, "I smelt the hounds;" his eyes said, "We looked for the shortest way;" his ears said, "We Hstened for the breathing of the hounds;" and his legs said, "We ran away with you." Then he asked his tail what it had done, and it said, "Why, I got caught in the bushes, or made your leg stumble; that is all I could do." So, as a pimishment, the Fox stuck his tail out of his den, and the hounds saw it and caught hold of it, and dragged the Fox out of his den by it and ate him all up. So that was the end of Master Reynard, and well he deserved it. Don't you think so? — Joseph Jacobs, Europa's Fairy Book. THE DEATH OF BALDUR But through the darkness the great throng watched the burning ship carried further and further over the distant waters, while the Hght of the funeral pyre grew dimmer and fainter, until at last, with a shower of sparks, the vast burning pyre and hull fell in, reddening the sea — and then all was dark. — E. N. AND G. E. Partridge, Story-Telling in School and Home. HOW THE CAMEL GOT HIS HUMP He has never caught up with the three days he missed at the beginning of the world, and he has never learnt how to behave. — Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories. JACK THE DULLARD We have all this straight out of the alderman's newspaper, but it is not to be depended on. — Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy Tales, THE STAR CHILD And they fell on his neck and kissed him, and brought him into the palace, and clothed him in fair raiment, and set the 54 children's stories and how to tell them crown upon his head, and the scepter in his hand, and over the city that stood by the river he ruled, and was its lord. Much mercy and justice did he show to all, and the evil Magician he banished, and to the Wood-cutter and his wife he sent many rich gifts, and to their children he gave high honour. Nor would he suffer any to be cruel to bird or beast, but taught love and loving-kindness and charity, and to the poor he gave bread, and to the naked he gave raiment, and there was peace and plenty in the land. — Oscar Wilde, The House of Pomegranates. THE COMING OF ARTHUR Then as they went from the church King Arthur's Knights, clad in stainless white, marched before him with trumpets and a song: Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May! Blow trumpet, for the night hath rolled away ! Blow thro' the living world, "Let the King reign!" And that was the coming of King Arthur. — Richard Thomas Wyche, Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them. Before now, doubtless, it will have been observed that the pointing of a moral is eschewed by tellers of good stories. This old-time habit of thrusting home the ob- vious is happily overpast. That teaching which the action of the story does not itself bring to the child's consciousness can never be given at the close by the formal words of the story-teller. If you would kill the natural effect of the story, get out your hammer and tack on a moral. Look at that exquisite ending of "The Star Child," told with a purity of English comparable only to that wellspring of beauty, the English Bible, from which indeed its style was learned; then ask yourself whether the young hearer, who has been sympathetically THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY 55 following the Star Child through loss and sorrow to the day of his crowning, must not feel, in emotional arouse- ment, the fineness of all that the hero did at the last. Moral appeal most good stories do make, but it must not be an obvious appeal. One of the chief factors in the moral training of stories lies in this: A useful didactic story subtly leads the child to say within himself , "That punishment was deserved," "Master Reynard was a tricky fellow;" "I'm glad that Cinderella, instead of one of her mean sisters, got the Prince; " "Jack had more pluck than I have — I wonder if I could be so brave if I tried?" SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. Point out the differences between the magazine short- story and the story told to children. Note : Those who wish to look more fully into the technique of the short-story will find on one of the front fly leaves of this volume a list of books on the subject, by one of the present writers. 2. Of the stories printed in this book say which are tales. The instructor may limit this assignment to the exiamination of, say, ten stories. 3. (a) If any opening quoted in this chapter seems in- effective, criticise it. ih) Alter it so as to meet your views. 4. To what ages or school grades would any one of the openings seem best adapted? Say why. 5. Rewrite the opening of any story given complete in this book, so as to improve it, if you think it open to criticism. 6. Rewrite any opening given in this chapter, or given in the complete stories, so as to adapt it to children of a different age or school grade, stating at what grade you are aiming. 7. Give reasons supporting the changes made. 56 children's stories and how to tell them 8. Criticise specifically, and re-tell, the opening of any story you have heard told which seemed unsuitable. 9. (a) Say how you would open a story-hour — not a specific story. (&) How would you get the children in order and in proper attitudes — if the latter seems important to you. 10. Why are elaborate introductions bad? 11. (a) Point out which of the four elements of an opening named in this chapter are present or absent in the openings quoted, (b) Do the same with five openings of stories printed in full in later chapters. 12. Write (or give orally) five very brief sentences in which setting is given — use the method of suggestion in at least two. 13. How was setting indicated on the Elizabethan stage? 14. Is it important that a child should be fully acquainted with the settings of stories told to him? Give your reasons. 15. What do you understand by the mood or tone of a story? 16. Is it well to have the mood of the story shift during its narration? 17. Invent several variations of "Once upon a time." 18. Write an original opening (a) for a re-told story, (b) for an original story. Be sure to be brief. 19. Quote an opening that seems to you to be especially good. Say why. 20. Briefly outline the plot of any short-story in this col- lection, marking the points of crisis, suspense, and denouement (outcome of the struggle or complication). 21. Try to find an instance in which plausibility is violated in a children's story. Correct the error. 22. Point out the climax in any three stories, whether told in this book or not. 23. Do you know of an instance in which a story would have been improved if it had been ended earlier? If so, point out the exact place. 24. Apply question 3 to the ending of the story and answer it. Note: The same may be done with questions 5, 6, 7, and 8. THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY ^f 25. Do Bible stories illustrate the principles of structure taught in this chapter? GRIST FROM OTHER MILLS Edward Porter St. John, in Stones and Story-Telling, gives these as "some vital characteristics of good stories: Suggestive- ness or Meaning, Unity, and Action." "Bible stories are models. . . . You are left to read as much between the Hnes as you choose, but the kernel of the message is soon revealed. You are in touch with real life from start to finish and essentials only are admitted." — Samuel B. Haslett, The Pedagogical Bible School. In her How to Tell Stories to Children, Sarah Cone Bryant analyzes three stories— "The Three Bears," " Three Little Pigs, " and "The Little Pig that Wouldn't Go Over the Stile" — and finds in them three characteristics important in the structure of children's stories: "Something happens, all the time." "Each event presents a distinct picture to the imagination, and these pictures are made out of very simple elements." And, "A third characteristic ... is a certain amount of repetition" — sometimes cumulative. CHAPTER VI THE PREPARATION OF THE STORY FOR TELLING It is impossible for one who has not spent much time in study- to understand all the carefully concealed machinery which lies back of any art. But there is one thing any one must be willing to do before he attempts to tell stories in even the most unas- suming way ; namely, so to live with the literature which he is to interpret that he becomes filled with the spirit and atmosphere of the tale and it becomes in a sense his own. Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the necessity of this one thing. I have known artists who live with the stories they are to tell a year, sometimes two years, before they feel that they are ready to give them to an audience. — Edna Lyman, Story-Telling — What to Tell and How to Tell it From the short quotation foregoing it seems evident that it is not enough that you as a story-teller understand the structure of stories in general, nor yet that you have often read or heard the particular story you purpose telling — a definite preparation for the presentation of that story is necessary if you are to tell it effectively, and effectively is a big word. The Subjective Appeal The first step in the preparation of a story for telling is to put yourself in tune with its spirit. No matter what authority has pronounced the story good, never tell it unless it appeals to you personally. It is unfair to the THE PREPARATION OF THE STORY FOR TELLING 59 story, to your audience, and to yourself to try to interpret a piece of literature with which you are not in perfect harmony. Unless the story expresses your own thoughts and feelings, unless it is an outlet for your inner self, it is not for you.^ Story-telUng, therefore, should be a form of self-expres- sion, "a giving forth as rain that which has been received as mist." This is not possible unless the message of the story is felt to be your message. If you can say of a story "1 love it", you are inevitably seized with a desire to make some one else love it, for the story-teller is never content until he has shared his treasure-trove. Re-creating the Conditions of the Story As a first step in mastering the story for telling, you will re-create in your own mind the story as a whole, adding to the author's vision the coloring of your personality. You will read it again and again, absorbing the author's style, the subtle shadings of his presentation of his theme. You will see the pictures move before the eye of your mind like the silent enactment of a drama on the moving-picture screen — as a series of definitely connected scenes. This inner visualization is the essential preliminary in the prep- aration of a story. One day last spring two street cleaners were talking to- gether as they sat on the curb. One said to the other: ''You know, when you tell a story you got to just see it ^ See page 37 6o children's stories and how to tell them happenin' when you're tellin' it — if you want the other feller to git the point. " The old man had found the secret of the story-teller's art — just to "see it happenin' when you're tellin' it." This picture-quality comes only through the re-creative power of the imagination. Dare to wonder about your story. Wonder until your wondering becomes a magic power, which sets the actors to playing out their parts before you. Wonder until you see all that the author has not told you of what happened before this story could come to pass. In other words, your imagination must fill out all the happenings which you instinctively know make up the unwritten background of the story. This is more especially necessary if the story you are to tell is a frag- ment, as a section cut from a longer narrative, for then only a knowledge of the whole will fit you for telling the part. For example, if you are preparing a story of David and Goliath, you will catch the vision of a fearless boy, ruddy of countenance, running to meet the giant champion. You will see him adjust the stone in his shepherd's sling and hurl it with unerring aim at Goliath's forehead. Then you will go back and begin to wonder — and question: Why was David's eye so keen? Why was his aim so sure? Why was his arm so strong? Why was he not afraid? For answer, you will see him as a child living in the fields with his brothers as they tended their father's flocks. You will see him jumping, running, climbing, growing daily stronger, taller, more ruddy of countenance, more keen of eye. You will picture the boyish games he must THE PREPARATION OF THE STORY FOR TELLING 6l have played. Step by step you will build up his prepara- tion for this first service to his people. And so also with Goliath's life, and the whole struggle between the two warring peoples. Out of such dreamings and questionings will come that intangible something called atmosphere — the surrounding air — which is a part of every work of art. When this atmosphere has fully developed, you are ready for The Intensive An alysis of the Story First of all, state clearly to yourself the central theme. This can almost always be expressed in one short sentence, thus: How a courageous shepherd boy delivers his people by doing the thing he has learned to do while defending his flocks. Or, How David did with a sling-shot what he could not have done with an unaccustomed sword. Or, How God used a boy who knew his work to put a braggart to rout. Or the theme might be stated in a dozen other ways. Whatever big point you wish to bring out in the story, that is its theme. Of course this theme is not to be stated formally when you tell your story — it is merely to help you crystallize the action of the tale around a central point. Next you will want to note with what details or incidents the author reinforces this theme. Determine which in- cidents belong to the background, and which, through emphasis or elaboration, should receive the "high light" in the composition. The story-teller's sense of the dra- 62 matic, his feeling for the artistic in selection, must be his guide in this part of the work. The technique of a story is the same as that of a great painting. Every part of the background, however minute, must be in harmony, or in intentional contrast with, and furnish the essential setting for, the central figure which works out the artist's message in the action. In the Corcoran Art Gallery at Washington there is a wonderful picture called "The Family," by L'Hermitte. The setting is a field of yellow wheat, part of it uncut, part of it tied into bundles, part of it loaded on the wagon. In the foreground sits a mother nursing her baby. The father, with his scythe thrown over his shoulder, has paused a moment to look with grave tenderness at the child. The mother's eyes are looking with a passionate motherhood into the face against her breast. The old grandmother sits at the right, also gazing fondly at the infant. A little sister and brother kneel against the mother, with eyes turned adoringly upon the baby's face. Every eye, every stroke with which the wheat is pictured, leads to the baby. Now notice the significance of the wheat as a back- ground for the family. It is their sustenance, the fruit of their toil — it tells us much of the occupation and condition of the family, the season, and more besides. But further, it seems to be symbolical, for perhaps the three arrange- ments of the wheat mirror the three generations of the family — the uncut grain corresponding to the children; that which is harvested and bundled, 'to the parents; that which is loaded and ready to be carried to other scenes, to the grandparents. Every detail of the picture is es- THE PREPARATION OF THE STORY FOR TELLING 6^ sential, and every one points to the child, saying, "It is for this we exist." This unity of theme, so humanly and dramatically expressed in this masterpiece, this harmony of detail, so subtly developed, should characterize every story which is presented to an audience. We must reiterate here what is said elsewhere: It is important, next, to conceive of your story as a longer or shorter series of scenes, or perhaps as a single dramatic scene. Whichever it is, let the action be envisioned before you in this pictorial way, one act leading naturally to another until you come to the high point — the climax — where the vital action is shown. No more important step in preparation is there than to set the climax clearly before your mind's eye, for how can one intelligently work to- ward a point without planning clearly what that point is to be, and by what steps it is to be reached? To sum up: Determine the climax of your story, then with the same sure strokes as those of the artist, make each incident of the action, each detail of the setting, say, "It is for this we exist. " Having established your mood, absorbed the author's style, developed the imaginative atmosphere, and analyzed the structure of the story, you are ready for the next step in preparation: Fitting Words to the S tory These words should be your ov/n, and come spon- taneously at the time of presentation. The memorized 64 children's stories and how to tell them story is mechanical, and its mechanism usually creaks — it is like a chiseled image, rather than a living, breathing being; it is parrot-like recitation, rather than creation. The story-teller must free his mind from all but the life of the story which flows through his words to his listeners. Each sentence must be charged with the electric current of his joy in the giving. It is this joy which will free him from self-consciousness. Not himself, but the story is important. He is merely the medium through which the message is transmitted. He must know his story so well that his mind is freed from thought of words and thought of self, then will his mood play through the story, catching and kindling the spirit of his audience. Consider the force of these words of the poet Bryant: The secret wouldst thou know To touch the heart or fire the blood at will? Let thine own heart o'erflow; Let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill; Seize the great thought ere yet its power is past And bind, in words, the fleet emotions fast. On considering — yet not memorizing — the words and the sentence forms you are to use in telling a story, pay attention to points like the following: Do not use words equivocally — that is, words which as first heard, particularly when used in a certain word-con- nection, have a double meaning. Children are readily confused by such expressions as "Jack was carving a figure ;^^ "I must go help Alice with the cow — she is not yet well trained, and she might upset the milk pail. " In using words unfamihar to the children, be careful to THE PREPARATION OF THE STORY FOR TELLING 65 do SO sparingly, and be doubly certain that each unfamiliar word may be understood from the way in which it is used. In this way the vocabulary of the child will be enlarged. When story-telling is employed as an adjunct to language work, certain words may be explained in the preceding language lesson and then used in the story. Or the process may be reversed^ Fit the language-form to the spirit of the story. The dignity of Bible English is not suited to ''Tom Thumb." The beauty of smooth-flowing style and the vigor of terse expression may be impressed upon the child subconsciously at an early age. For this reason it is better to avoid slang and extremely colloquial expressions — but on the other hand be sure that you do not reject our easy, correct colloquial idioms for stilted English. Watch the transitions between sentences and parts of sentences. " And then, " " So, " " Next, " " But, " and the like, should be used in a way that will lead the mind to recognize such ideas as succession, reversal of movement, contrast, and change of mind. Even the formal "Where- upon," "Hence," "Wherefore," etc., may be chosen in stories of the heroic or Biblical sort, so as to enlarge the children's understanding. The simpler literary forms should be mastered by the story-teller. In choosing your English, "Simphfy but do not sillify." vSUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. Can you agree with the sentiments quoted from Edna ^ There is a good chapter on " Story- Telling in Teaching English, " in Stories to Tell to Children, by Sara Cone Bryant. 66 children's stories and how to tell them Lyman's "Story-Telling" at the opening of this chapter? Give reasons, briefly. 2. Make an orderly list of the several steps in preparing a story for telling, as recommended in this chapter^ 3. Which seem to you the most important, and why? 4. Can you add any others which seem valuable? 5. Analyze any of the longer stories in this book, and briefly say what are (a) its theme, (b) its essential scenes (c) its climax. 6. Say why you chose this story. 7. After preparing this same story carefully, tell it to an audience, preferably of children, and report the defects of your story-telling. 8. Criticise, kindly but honestly, similar work by another. 9. State the themes of any five stories given in this book. 10. Invent two original themes. 11. Invent several scenes, and a climax scene, from one of these two themes. 12. Without writing out the story, tell it. Do not let it be a long story, and say to what grade of children you wish it to appeal. CHAPTER VII METHODS OF STORY-TELLING I like to think of the story-teller as a good fellow standing at a great window overlooking a busy street or a picturesque square, and reporting with gusto to the comrade in the rear of the room what of mirth or sadness he sees; he hints at the policeman's strut, the organ grinder's string, the school girl's gayety, with a gesture or two which is born of an irresistible impulse to imitate, but he never leaves his fascinating post to carry imitation farther than a hint. — Sara Cone Bryant, How to Tell Stories to Children. It should be clear by now that the authors of this book are not disposed to lay down fixed rules for the invention, selection, preparation and telling of stories; quite on the contrary, it has seemed far better to set a body of facts in order before the story-teller so that the principles of the art might be arrived at reasonably, and not accepted on the authority of others. It is intended that this spirit should also pervade the present study of methods — methods that assume the careful preparation of the story proper and apply to its actual recital. The Mood of the Story-Teller Sympathy is the first great necessity for effective oral narration. Sympathy with the story may be presupposed, as we have urged in the chapter on " The Basis of Selection of Children's Stories," and real sympathy with children 68 children's stories and how to tell them is of course even more a primary necessity; but what about those occasional moods of depression, weariness, self-distrust, irritation from worrisome cares, and all the rest of those forces, whether overt or subtle, that throw us out of harmony with the ideal warmth of the story-hour — is there any cure for these? The' story-teller's problem is precisely that of the preacher, the lecturer, the legal pleader and the actor. These public speakers by and by learn that it is not only possible but vitally necessary to practice self-electrification. This process is not imitation or pretense — listeners soon unmask the face that wears a false smile — it is what dramatic trainers call conviction. And that word gives us the key to self-arousement. Emotion is an effect, and of course also a cause, but it is an effect before it is a cause: it is a response to some sort of appeal kindUng the forces of mind and body and wrapping them in a fervent heat of conviction that what the speaker is then saying is of the utmost importance. What are the appeals which the story-teller may make to her own emotions so as to induce the mood for magnetic story-teUing? First, a direct exercise of the will. "I WILL!" repeated with a sudden contraction of the whole being — spirit and body — will not fail to produce a powerful reaction, a thrill. This is what we mean by concentration — a centering of every force on a single point. A little practice in con- centration — mind you, it must be sudden — will bring a genuine flash to your eye, a tightening of relaxed muscles, a quickening of the pulse, an alertness of bearing, even the METHODS OF STORY-TELLING 69 starting of a tear, that will put you in any mood that your will may command. How else, do you suppose, does the emotional actress succeed in acting with so much sincerity, two hundred nights in succession? Believe that this is possible for you also. Not always are we able to defer our story-telling to an hour of inspiration unevoked. At first it may seem that this self-electrification is a piti- ful physical subterfuge. Far from it — it is purely spiritual in its origin. When the mind — or heart, if you choose — suddenly images some exciting idea, the will summons every faculty to sense that idea intently, and the result is aroused emotion; and with emotion once aroused in the story-teller the victory is well begun. Try your own power over yourself just now by calling up the emotion of fear. Now make it definite — fear of an angry dog. Change the emotion to determination to quell him with your eye. Practice calling out emotion in many forms until you can arouse yourself at will. It can be done — every actor, every orator, knows that — and you can do it. One word of caution, however: In self-electrification at the beginning of a story, do not start at so high a pitch that you early exhaust your powers and so fall into a disap- pointing anticlimax. Once well begun, the story will fur- nish much, or perhaps all, of its own "ginger. " A second means of self-arousement is a more deliberate one, for it is really an essential part of your preparation that carries itself over into the telling of the story — it consists in so steady a concentration on the mood, the pervading feeling of the story, that absorption results. The successful 70 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM story-teller not only absorbs her story — she is absorbed in it. Re-read the preceding chapter on "The Preparation of the Story for TelHng," and see how vital it is to think and feel yourself into the heart of your story, until the story is in you and all of you is in the story. Sense the full meaning of this word absorb. The story must possess you before you can possess it, and so cause the story to possess your hearers. Forget all else, but don't forget this truth. Yet, withal, retain your supremacy of will, so that you may not be carried beyond the bounds of restraint. Here is a golden middle-path for the story-teller. The third means — also partly a matter of preparation and partly of delivery — is visualization. Image the scenes one by one; dream them, but with restraint, lest you wander away from your prepared outhne; live them until you feel their vital reality. It cannot be repeated too urgently: visualize the story as a series of connected scenes in a simple drama. The Manner of the Story-Teller Manner, evidently, should grow out of mood, but it oftener is the effect of habit, and not always admirable habit. Now attitude is generally counted to be a matter of artifice, but it may be quite sincere. Mental attitude re- veals itself in manner, both toward the story and toward the child. Does it require a great occasion to excite your most interested attitude toward the tale and the children? Once admit to yourself that this story, this moment, is trivial, and your lackadaisical mood will inevitably betray METHODS OF STORY-TELLING 7 1 itself to your listeners — if listeners they long remain. If you feel this negligent attitude and would like to correct it, think seriously upon this truth: We never know at what moment the water-shed of a young life may be reached. No truly educational act can really be trivial. The personal appearance of the story-teller may seem a slight matter, but neatness and taste in dress do have a bearing on first impressions. Their delight in the story may overcome for the hearers any unpleasantness in the narrator's appearance, but why accept a handicap? Charm, it is well worth remembering, is of composite origin. Think this out. Poise is an even more important consideration. Neither a stately pose nor a forced vivacity is good. Flexibility, not nervous restlessness, wins and holds attention. Poise comes from self-control, but self-control must steer a middle course between watchfulness of self and self- consciousness. Put your feet and hands and head and back bone where you want them to be, and don't let them move until you order them to; then put them in the next place. Soon an unaffected manner will be com- bined with perfectly controlled movement. The whole matter is analogous to eating in company. If you found yourself masticating out loud, you would stop it. Good table-bearing becomes a habit by quietly doing the right thing until it becomes second nature. Every awkward, spasmodic movement pushes back the moment of perfect self-government and begins to cultivate a man- nerism. Toying with a pencil, twisting a thread, the use of uhs, and any other distracting movement or sound 72 children's stories and how to tell them habitually repeated, can be checked by following the grinning advice of the Irish drill-sergeant: "Now sthep out and look at yersilves!" But self-consciousness is really an affliction with many — who accept it as a visitation of Heaven, to be borne with like a deformed foot. This is heresy. Self-consciousness before an audience of either little folks or grown-ups may be overcome by making such careful preparation that public utterance will require a minimum of attention, and then steadfastly thinking upon what you are saying and not of how you are saying it. The "how" should have been considered hours before. Having prepared thoroughly, you may rest assured that you are better fitted to tell that story than is any of your hearers. Grip your forces as determinedly as you would a knife for a delicate piece of work, then WILL all fear away. Once more: Overcome self-consciousness by resolutely thinking of something else. Methods in Delivery Memorizing (see Chapter VI) is a matter that each story- teller must decide personally. The ablest public narrators decidedly agree that the memorizing of a story word for word is not the best method, chiefly because that system allows for no flexibility in the recital, and chains the fancy. Hence memorizing tends toward a mechanical manner. Yet some masterpieces are so closely associated with the language of the original that the omission of some words and the rephrasing of certain sentences clearly weaken the effect. But this will not apply to the whole story. METHODS or STORY-TELLING 73 A kind of memorizing is practiced by every good story- teller—that of repeating the story so often that the language is as familiar as the Apostles' Creed to a church- man. Others commit only those parts of a story that would positively suffer from variation, and then depend for the rest upon the spirit of the moment. Whatever method be pursued, the air of spontaneity and lively freshness must be preserved. In familiar stories the children become wedded to a precise arrangement of certain of the words and with pleasure they look for their repetition. The wise story-teller will consider well before altering those time-honored phrases which all the world has come to love, yet be alive to the importance of adapting the language of the story to the audience. Few untrained speakers realize that charm of voice may be acquired by anyone who is willing to spend a few minutes daily on deep-breathing exercises, and to pay attention to the tones used in ordinary conversation. Doubtless nearly every story-teller can sing "a Httle," 3^et does not singing illustrate the ease of tone-placing? Put your voice down when it shows a tendency to shoot up. By an act of will smooth off its rough edges. Relax the muscles of the throat when you feel them tightening as you speak. Practice the full, deep, open tones. Repeat " open" words like ''Oh" until you feel deep down the vibration and richness of a round tone. The poet Longfellow ad- vised Mary Anderson to read joyous lyric poetry aloud daily so as to put brightness into her voice. Learn to listen to your own voice and so cultivate charm of tone. If you are moved by the voice-quality of a public speaker. 74 are not children charmed by it as well? If a story-teller is worthy of the name, care in voice-control will not seem too hard a task. Clear enunciation and articulation are even more im- portant than charm of voice. By enunciation a vocal sound is issued; by articulation two or more sounds — as in the utterance of successive syllables — are spoken or sung. Imitative as they are, children quickly copy the slovenly speech of their elders, hence the importance of their hearing good models. If your lips seem heavy and inert, a very little daily practice in lip-twisting will make the muscles flexible. If you enunciate badly, eliding part of a word, as "fi' cents," simply stop it. If you articulate carelessly, dividing syllables with carelessness, as, *'He paddled on in his bar kanoo, " stop that also. Whatever be the fault and its cause, two steps will bring about a cure: listening to your own speech and the use of the will. But in correcting faults such as these, avoid the extreme of graceless over-precision. Don't catapult your conson- ants at your hearers. Change of pace is one of the most effective methods of delivery. Now rapidly, now slowly, now with moderate speed, constantly accommodate your rate of utterance to the mood of the story. The flat evenness of a uniform pace is guaranteed to be dull. Change of pace and the interest of the narration in general are helped by the use of what proficient speakers know as the pause — a well-calculated pause either just before or just after an emphatic word or an important statement. The preliminary pause is a signal that some- METHODS OF STORY-TELLING 75 thing interesting is about to come, it gives the vital point time to pierce the mind. The after-pause allows time for the point to sink in. Pause makes use of that greatest of all devices known to the talker — contrast. It is the foe of monotony and the friend of emphasis. Rightly used, there can be no better device by which to cap a cHmax. Change of pitch is still another admirable method of holding the listener's interest. Single-toned expression is monotony, and who is wilHng to be monotonous? Speak the following sentence in four different ways, varying the pitch as is indicated by the position of the words on the page, from the high to low, and low to high: ^O 1,- "i th ..^^tVa^'' And what can I do with And what can I do with that? that? 76 children's stories and how to tell them Not for the purpose of being spectacular, but because change of pitch kills monotony and brings out important thoughts emphatically, read aloud any story given in this volume and practice both gradual and sudden shifts of pitch. But be moderate, for extremes lead to the ridic- ulous. If this experience in altering vocal pitch should be a new one, its effectiveness will surprise you. Most speakers know no other way to make utterance forcible than to speak the words loudly. By a judicious use of change of pace, pause, pitch, and verbal inflection, there will be little need for the very loud tones, and when they are used they will be more impressive for their rarity. Gejteral position and posture are important, yet they are so altogether governed by the circumstances of story- telling that advice seems useless. It is doubtless enough for you to be set to thinking of these matters. Whether to stand or sit, you must decide — perhaps you will practice variety here also. One thing, however, seems open to less difference of opinions: the best story-tellers face as many of their hearers as possible. The hearers seated in an arc, forming the third of a circle, the center of which is occupied by the speaker, thus: ^T^ is a natural position if circum- stances allow this arrangement. The speaker should not form a part of the arc, thus: ^•^^ Gesture and mimicry are valuable adjuncts to good story- telling, but, like everything else dramatic, they may easily be overdone. Children nowadays — town children, at least — are generally familiar with the moving picture and at any rate are naturally skillful in interpreting pantomime. 1 How to Tell Stories to Children, Sarah Cone Bryant, p. 94. METHODS OF STORY-TELLING 77 Imitative sounds and movements should be apt and ex- pressive or they had better be omitted. Many a good story has been spoiled by inept efforts to mimic the motions and the calls of animals, or the exact intonations of fancied beings. The line between the humorous and the non- sensical is slight indeed; and unless a farcical story is being told, the important point in a tale may be buried under the grotesque efforts of the story-teller to be imita- tive. The after-dinner speaker who is under the delusion that he can tell a funny story has a pathetic comrade in the story-teller who does not know her dramatic limitations. How effective, on the contrary, are bird-calls and animal-grunts, deep rumbUngs of giants and piping fairy voices, when the artist story-teller is a past-master mimic. That is an attainment worth — literally — years of practice, provided it be given by one who is natively well endowed. The value of drawing as an aid to story-telKng is not a matter of general agreement. Certain it is, however, that bad drawing is worse than none. Those who essay the crayon may find themselves in the position of Artemus Ward, who when delivering his famous "London Lecture" used to point to a nondescript daub on the canvas of his panorama and say: "My friends, I can conceal it from you no longer — it is a horse. " Obviously, the danger of even the best drawing while telling a story is that attention may be drawn from the trend of the story. One mental image fades — or tends to fade — the moment another is projected on the mind, but a drawn image remains while the story goes on. It seems 78 safe to say this much: Unless you are able to draw swiftly and accurately, though very simply, and unless you can make your story keep perfect pace with your drawing, it is better not to try to ride the two horses at once. All that has here been said on drawing applies to the recital of stories to musical accompaniment. An expert pipe organist or a hidden harpist could indeed add greatly to the effect of certain stories, but such opportunities are so exceptional as to be impracticable for the majority of story-tellers. One final point deserves emphasis — the importance oj gauging the efect of the story on the audience as the story progresses. This cannot always be done by noting those faces which smile and those which frown. A certain story- teller used to have in her audiences two children — one on whose face always appeared a placid grin, no matter what the theme; the other was as certain to wear a dour aspect. The former was a good-natured empty-pate, the latter the most appreciative listener in a bright class. We must learn to watch for the subtle lights and shades on the countenances of those who sit before us. The swift arresting of a wandering glance, the cessation of shuffiing feet, the sudden concentration of a glance — a score of signs — will tell us when we have captured our little hearers. Then is the time to proceed with such caution that not one iota may be lost of that for which the story was so patiently prepared and so carefully told — the efect upon those young minds, each one of which contains such tremendous possibilities for good or ill. METHODS OF STORY-TELLING 79 SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. Practice arousing in yourself the emotion of (a) surprise, (b) distaste, (c) distrust, (d) ridicule, (e) some other emotion which you will definitely name. 2. Say how the manner of the story-teller affects the child favorably or unfavorably. 3. Is there such a thing as over-sprightHness of manner? 4. Name any faults of bearing which tend to repel or distract the attention of child-listeners. 5. What influences have you found to be effective in dispell- ing either personal timidity or self-consciousness before an audience of children? 6. What are the demerits of memorizing a story verbatim? Are there any merits? 7. (a) What has been your own experience in regard to telling fully memorized stories? (b) Partially memorized stories? 8. The bright tones of the voice are nasal — not in the un- pleasant sense. Repeat: Sing-song, Ding-dong, Hong-kong, Long- thong, in order to secure resonance. Have a clear head. 9. Practice throwing your tones forward in the mouth ; then utter several words well back in the throat, and notice the carrying quality of the former as compared with the thick nature of the latter. 10. Repeat me-mo many times so as to gain lip-flexibility. 11. Make a Hst of ten imperfect enunciations and articula- tions commonly in use. 12. From any one of the stories printed in this book select several sintable passages and repeat them, practicing change of pace or tempo. 13. Do the same in practicing pause. 14. Do the same in practicing change of pitch. 15. Utter the word. Oh! so as to express at least four distinct meanings, letting the class interpret. 16. Do the same with (a) Yes, (b) No. 17. What has been your experience or observation regarding general position and posture in story-telling? 8o children's stories and how to tell them 18. Read the quotation that heads this chapter and say how it applies to gesture and mimicry. 19. Give the results of any experience you have had, or observations you have made, regarding the merits or demerits of gesture and mimicry in story-teUing. 20. Do the same as regards (a) drawing as an adjunct to story-telHng; (b) musical accompaniment. Apply these ideas not to the stage performer but to the home, school and recreation- center narrator. 21. From your observation, how does flagging interest in a child-audience show itself? 22. Can you give any experience, whether personal or from observation, showing how flagging interest was revived? 23. In your own way, prepare for telling any story given in this volume. Tell it with due attention to the points emphasized in this chapter. 24. Applying the points you have learned from this chapter, specifically criticise a story told by another. 25. In the same manner, criticise one of the stories told by yourself. GRIST FROM OTHER MILLS "Nearly all amateur story-tellers speak too fast anyhow, not allowing for the slow apprehensions of the children and forgetting that what is familiar to themselves is entirely fresh to their hearers, and there is always the temptation, for the sake of creat- ing an air of animation, or to carry the hearers enthusiastically through an exciting scene, or to drown out a child with whooping cough, or to be sure not to overstay the hour, to become almost breathless with speed of utterance. The result is that details get left out, points are not clearly made, the children get irritated and the story is not well told. A minister who was subject to this temptation used to write "Plenty of Time" in red ink at the top of every page of his manuscript. The story-teller having no manuscript cannot do this, but if he can imagine the clock saying it or can put a burdock in his pocket to remind him of the fact whenever he thrusts his hand inside, he may do as well. By slow METHODS OF STORY-TELLING 8 1 and distinct utterance the tones become deeper and more modu- lated, there is a chance here for a sentence of fine description, there to enhance the humor of the situation, and self-mastery to put one's best and not one's worst into the climax. " —William Byron Forbush, Manual of Stories, "The story-teller must not allow any intruding mental state or circumstance, any intruding 'self,' to come between the story andtheHstener. Suchaself may be: (1) The diffident or embar- rassed self of the self-conscious story-teller. (2) The vain or affected self of the insincere story-teller. (3) The weakening self of the patronizing story-teller. (4) The non-seeing self of the non-spontaneous story-teller. (5) The non-sensible, or non-artistic self of the 'sledge-hammer' story-teller. (6) The non-communicating self of the 'acting' story-teller. (7) The misinformed self of the Hfeless story-teller." —Angela M. Keyes, Stories and Story-Telling, CHAPTER VIII INVENTING STORIES FROM PICTURES The telling of stories refreshes the mind as a bath refreshes the body; it gives exercise to the intellect and its powers; it tests the judgment of the feelings. — Friedrich W. a. Froebel, Education of Man. There come times in every story-teller's experience when the re-told story seems for the moment to have lost its charm for the children, or does not excite in the narrator a desire to tell it. Again, the need for some definite kind of story may arise which is not perfectly met by any of the stories available at the time. On occasions like these what is to be done? Turn to pictures for suggestion and in- spiration, for nearly always pictures are stories, caught at some moment of high interest. Invention is sometimes a depressing duty. When the story-teller is suddenly confronted with the demand for an original story he is likely enough to be swamped in a desola- tion of barrenness, but let him once become acquainted with the picture as a stimulus to invention and his troubles are more than half-way past. No longer fettered by the terrifying thought that he must tell a story out of noth- ing, the most inexperienced fictionist will find that he has within himself unsuspected material which needs only to be re-imaged and worked upon by fancy, for the function of fancy is to mold, expand and embellish INVENTING STORIES FROM PICTURES 83 those images which are formed in the imagination. Like all forms of narration, telling stories from pictures may more readily be mastered if some simple and elastic method is well understood and followed.^ Five distinct steps are observable in telling stories from pictures and each of these requires not only thought but practice. Observation It should need no argument to convince us that the untrained observation is an inefficient affair. Take one long glance at the contents of a shop window, then try to repeat the details of what you were able to take in with that single look. When you have looked again at the win- dow you may test the fullness and the accuracy of your first observation — the color, form, size, and number of at least some of the objects seen on that second look will surprise you, unless you are a trained observer. The same principle applies to a picture. Five minutes' practice daily will do wonders in cultivat- ing the eye in full and exact observation. Begin with the whole, then observe the parts; next begin with the parts and ascend to the whole. By this method you will learn to observe in an orderly way and so remember more of what you see. Reporting Have you ever felt tongue-tied — or loose? It requires 1 This chapter is the outgrowth of MppincoWs New Picture Com- position Book, by J. Berg Esenwein (J. B. Lippincott Co., Phila- delphia), a method for teaching composition by means of pictures. 84 children's stories and how to tell them considerable practice to be able to say no less and no more than is intended. The trouble lies primarily in loose think- ing, and loose thinking results in part from careless obser- vation and imperfect coordination — of which more presently. Accurate reporting is not an entirely separate process from accurate observing, but a continuation of it, therefore the hint given at the end of the preceding section applies here as well — in reporting what you see in a picture, learn to proceed both from the general impression to the partic- ulars, and from the details to the picture viewed as a whole. Turn just now to some picture that delineates action, whether of people or of animals. What does the picture as a imit represent? What are its main parts? What are the details of the several parts? Now reverse the process. An important element of this exercise in accurate re- porting is the fitting of precise and pictorial words to the picture. Learn to call things and actions by names that not only clearly express their precise nature but also call up a picture. This involves the appreciation of shades of verbal meaning. Be specific. Do not try to describe that object by calling it a vessel, but name its species — it is a sloop, or a motor boat, or a battle ship, or what not. In telUng the story to very small children you may have either to explain or to use a general term, but in training yourself, narrow the general to the particular. In the same way, practice choosing words to describe feehngs and movements. Particularly when picturing action, whether of animate or inanimate objects, let your INVENTING STORIES FROM PICTURES 85 verbs express the precise shade — without the use of an adverb, if possible. Raining is general, drizzling is partic- ular. This whole important principle of choosing definite words you must apply for yourself to all sorts of expres- sions. Be assured, it is vital to good story-telling, which abhors the useless word and the vague. Learn also how to seize upon the important points in a picture and characterize them by suggestion. Some words denote, others connote. Denotative words accurately describe; connotative words suggest more than they actually say. Hence connotation is usually more pictur- esque than denotation. The most famous example is Dickens' picture of Mrs. Fezziwig in his "Christmas Carol:" "In came Mrs. Fezziwig — one vast substantial smile. " In reporting the contents of a picture, you are not yet concerned with invention; that, however, begins with the next step: Coordination This point needs only a word here. The principle is simple: Decide what are the chief story-elements in the picture, assign to each of these a place in relation to the other chief elements (whether any one is to be first or secondary in importance in the story), and then subordi- nate or omit everything else. The process of coordination, including subordination and exclusion, is therefore a sort of architectural planning of your story-material as found in the picture. 86 children's stories and how to tell them Selection is the basis of art. To set in the foreground that which belongs in the background destroys proportion, and disproportion means a confused picture, with interest weakened in consequence. *'Hold things in their propor- tion," said Henry Drummond. The next step will, of course, be in the back of your head all the while you are observing, reporting and coordinating, though we now consider it as a separate process: Fidionizing To see a story in a picture is easy if you set imagination at work, and embellish the image by adding your own fancies. The process is one of questioning, and consists of three steps: What is going on in the picture? What led up to this situation? What happens afterward? These three questions, What? Whence? Whither? will, of course, lead to other questions; particularly. Why? How? When? Where? Continue to ask questions until out of the picture grow all the facts of a story. Then comes the final step: Narration This includes the preparation of the story for telling, of course, and involves the same elements that we are dealing with in stories re- told or invented originally — the beginning, the body of the story, and the ending, as set forth in INVENTING STORIES FROM PICTURES 87 Chapter V. These need not be enlarged upon here, more than to re-emphasize the importance of telling the story in a series of steps or scenes, each leading naturally into its successor, up to the conclusion. Before ending this chapter, a few words must be said about the sort of pictures to choose. No advice is needed on where to find suitable pictures, for nowadays every home and school is well-supplied with pictorial matter, in newspapers, magazines, books, and in such inexpensive picture-series as the "Perry Pictures" and others.^ A picture scrapbook will be found most useful. Re-read the chapter on "The Basis of Selection for Children's Stories" so that you may be clear as to what reactions you wish to arouse in the mind of the child. The same motives that govern you in selecting a fairy tale, an animal story or a myth for re-telling must guide you in choosing a picture. Plainly, then, pictures of horrors, morbid interest, mere sentimentahty, and subjects that tend to arouse feelings or decisions which are not for a child of a given age, must be avoided. Action-pictures, rather than those of "still life," will be found most suggestive to the invention of the story- teller. Bible scenes, historical subjects, animal pictures, play, sport and travel scenes, and nature-pictures which 1 The New Picture Composition Book referred to in a footnote on a preceding page of this chapter is an inexpensive book and contains a large number of colored and black-and-white pictures for story-telHng. Forbush's Manual of Stories gives a chapter on "Picture Story- TelHng, " a Hst of inexpensive "story-pictures" and their pubhshers, and a descriptive list of books that treat pictures from an educational point of view. 88 children's stories and how to tell them include animals and persons, are particularly inspiring to the imagination. The story-teller must decide whether the picture itself should be shown to the child. If it is shown while the story is being told, the picture should be a rather simple one, lest complexity and unknown objects lead the atten- tion away from the story. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. Show how necessity may be "the mother of invention" and yet in other circumstances paralyze inventiveness. 2. Why was the word elastic used in the third paragraph of this chapter? 3. Report the results of one swift glance at a strange room — or a glance from a window upon some familiar scene. Use specific words. 4. Take a second and slightly longer look, then correct your first report, if need be. 5. Repeat the foregoing processes, using a fairly full picture for observation. Select specific words that most children would understand and also invent at least one suggestive expression in describing one of the chief characters or objects. 6. Name two or three famous pictures which suggest original stories — not the well-known stories which the pictures illustrate. 7. Select any picture for your purpose, study it, and then (a) name its contents, proceeding from the general to the details; (b) reverse the process; (c) name the one, two or three things you wish to bring out as prominent in the story; (d) name several subordinate ideas found in or suggested by the picture; (e) name some purely fancied or invented elements you might add as story material. 8. Outline the events of the story, after having reviewed Chapter V. INVENTING STORIES FROM PICTURES 89 9. Write out the story, feeling free to alter the foregoing outline in any way. Let invention be free, governed solely by your purpose — do not feel at all bound by the picture out of which the story grew. (If you depart freely from the plain elements of the picture, of course you will not show it to the child in telling the story.) 10. Try to explain just how one or more of the fanciful or in- vented elements entered your mind — that is, whether by deliber- ate invention, association of ideas, alteration, subconsciously, etc. 11. From any source, bring five pictures that suggest stories. 12. Very briefly tell what kinds of stories they suggest. 13. Begin a picture scrapbook. 14. (a) Would any of the pictures called for in Exercise 11 be suitable for showing to the children while the story is being told? (b) If so, which? (c) Give reasons why you chose some for this purpose and rejected others. 15. Select one or two pictures which ought not in any circum- stances be either shown to children as story-bases or even made the subjects of stories. Give reasons supporting your decision. 16. Relate any personal experience (a) in the use of pictures shown to children while the original story is being told, (b) in the use of pictures solely as a personal inspiration to invent. CHAPTER IX ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES *' The proper preparation of the story-teller is that he should saturate himself with the Bible story, but it must be story itself, not story and history mixed. When the story has been properly studied and assimilated, then the freest play of imagination should be used in the ren- dering. Like the actor, the story-teller is the translator, with the translator's double fidelity — to his original and to his au- dience. The question is not of translating out of one language into another ******** \^-^^i q^^ Qf Q^e set of mental habits belonging to ancient life into another set of habits char- acterizing the modern hearers who are to be impressed. Greek drama, with exquisite instinct, realized this double fidelity in its institution of the chorus. Theoretically, a Greek chorus is a portion of the supposed audience in the theater transported into the age and garb of the story dramatized, which they follow from point to point with meditations calculated to voice similar meditations on the part of those watching the repre- sentation of the drama. Every teller of a Bible story must be his own chorus, moving through the scenes of the narrative with the outlook and emotions of the men or the children of today." — Richard G. Moulton, The Art of Telling Bible Stories. The story-teller soon finds that while stories are count- less, those that can wisely be told without change to children are by no means so many. A certain story may have elements of decided appeal to little folk, but it is too long for telling, or parts of it ask for a mature under- standing, or one incident raises problems unsuited to ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES 9 1 either the children or the occasion, or it is too compli- cated in plot, or too many characters are introduced, or the scene of action is not picturesque — for one reason or another, the story must be adapted to fit the immediate purpose of the narrator. The answer to each such need may seem to be simple — the way to change a story is to change it. But, unfor- tunately, re-telling a story that needs adaptation is not always as direct a matter as the pruning of a bush. Sometimes the central stock must be cut off short and a branch trained up to become the new trunk. This process needs knowledge, care, and some practice if the final growth is to be lively and symmetrical. Before looking at a number of methods for adapting stories for word-of-mouth telHng, let us quickly see what ground has been covered in the preceding chapters, for always this thought must possess the student of methods: Purpose must govern means. In Chapter I the place of the story in the life of the child was set forth, leading in Chapter II to the truth that the development of personaUty in its richest forms of expression is an important object of story- telHng. The basis of selection of stories was treated in Chapter III, and the artist story-teller in Chapter IV. The next chapter, V, took up the structure of the story; its prepa- ration and presentation were discussed in Chapter VI, and Chapter VII went fully into various narrative methods. Chapter VIII, which dwelt on how to invent stories from pictures, naturally led up to the present chapter. A short review of these chapters should make it clear to the 92 children's stories and how to tell them story-teller that the principles already elaborated bear vitally upon the work of adapting stories for oral pres- entation. These can not be repeated here, of course, but a knowledge of them must be assumed in all that follows. Two fundamentally important cautions are now in order. The first is negative: Do not feel that every story needs adaptation. When you have found a story that meets the requirements of your aim — which should be quite definite — do not hesitate to tell it substantially as it is. Too extreme a wish to be original may lead you to mar a gem. It needs no finished enchantress to transform a giant of literature into a pygmy — a bungling apprentice, un- happily, may do it. Some stories are too big — not merely too long — for worthy re- telling. As the young people grow older they must be led to the great originals, so that in them they may discover all the charm and wonder and inspiration that come to those who make their first acquaintance with a masterpiece. Who, for example, would dare to re-tell "A Christmas Carol," or "Hia- watha," or "Rip Van Winkle?" Each word in such magic stories is needed to bring their full power to mind and heart. If the inexperienced story-teller is in doubt, let her consult some one of the various lists prepared for just such needs.^ The second caution is positive: In every step of your adaptation remember that you are to present the story by word of mouth. Written art and spoken art are essentially 1 See Part III of this volume. ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES 93 unlike in method. To name one difference only, printed words linger on the page, so that the impressions they make may be renewed indefinitely, whereas the spoken word, as Longfellow has imaged it for us, is like the arrow-flight, swift and not easy to follow. Each idea, therefore, must have its appropriate spoken word, each word its well-chosen mate, each group its sequence, and all must be picture-producing, so that one scene — or moving picture, as it were — may follow another with clearness and interesting liveliness. In short, description in the oral story must give way to action pictured in such a way that it will evoke in the hearer an elaboration of the bold outlines drawn by the speaker. The first step in adapting is to Analyze the Story Story-analysis is something more than separating the story into its components — it includes classifying the parts into major and minor, and also determining the relations of each to the other.^ Perhaps the best plan is to ask ourselves questions about the story. Certainly this is a good method if we persist until each query is met by a satisfying answer. What is the bare story, denuded of its contributory inci- dents, if there are any? we may ask. Are there any links which are really not parts of the chain of action, yet which seem to be essential? To change the figure: do such little side trips actually and directly help to See page 85. 94 children's stories and how to tell them bring out the attractiveness of the main journey, or do they, even by ever so little, divert interest from the path? Which characters are indispensable to the story? Which may be dispensed with? Which, for our object, really clog the scenes? What relations do the minor scenes bear to the chief ones? Which lesser characters are really needed to show us the more important actors? Questions like these should be pressed until we are quite in the clear as to what the story is, in whole and in part; and the same sort of incisive analysis will be used again and again as we follow out one or more of the methods now to be suggested — for analysis is not a mere preliminary to synthesis, but is present in it as a body of knowledge to make the up-building process more firm and symmetrical. Study the Situation to he Adapted A situation in fiction is a state of affairs resulting from certain causes and leading to definite effects. The chief situation in a story is the pivot point of the plot. For example, Billy Squirrel has run away from home. This is a definite situation, having a cause and also effects — which make the story. Now the study of a big situation in a story involves an examination of the lesser or causal situations which led up to it, as well as those that result. Hence when a story is being studied for adaptation and condensation, the whole story, the larger story, must first be examined. An epic, for instance, contains many episodes, or side trips, and no one of these can be perfectly understood by ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES 95 the narrator without a knowledge of the entire series, with the bearing of one on the other. In the same way the chief and the lesser scenes of the single episode to be adapted for telling must, of course, be understood in their relations to each other. But more than this: the surroundings — called techni- cally the setting — of the whole story, and of each of its scenes, must be understood. To be sure, it would be expecting too much to ask a mother or a young teacher to master all the details of the Greek life and lands before adapting a simple story from Homer — that were to make story-telling from the Iliad and the Odyssey a discourag- ing task. Yet it cannot be doubted that the fuller the knowledge of the setting of the main story from which the section is taken for adaptation, the richer will be the story-teller's equipment. It is not, however, in these days of book-helps either a heavy or an unpleasing task to fill one's self with the spirit and understanding of Greek life — since we are now pointing an example from Homer. Those who are totally unable, or unwilling, to absorb the setting of a race, or a period, or a country, would better confine their adaptations to stories whose surrounding fife they know, or else simply re-tell stories from the multitude of books which present them ready for narration. Focus the Story These three words tell it all. The good short-story converges, it does not diverge — according to a precon- 96 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM ceived plan it concentrates, it does not spread. Each word directs the spot-Hght upon the picture to be shown, each thing the actors do or say leads to an effect which the story-teller has planned to make on the child hearer. Again be it said, whatever does not help, hinders. That great constructive critic of the short-story, Edgar Allan Poe, first announced a theory of story-telHng that has done more to influence the methods of fiction than any other before or since laid down. He said that the efficient story-teller decides on a definite impression he wishes to make on the reader, and then sends every ray of the story converging toward that impression. In this sense the teller of stories to children must be an impres- sionist — he must first /ee/ and see the impression, and then select — a most important word — those scenes, and those scenes only, which make that same impression on the child, and no other impression whatsoever. At what effect am I aiming? the narrator must ask herself. If she cannot answer that question she will be totally unable to produce a definite effect. What sort of children, precisely, are before me? How much do they know of what I am about to tell them? What points of sensitiveness in their knowledge, their stations in life, and their interests, can I find on which to focus the light of this story? These inquiries are vital for the impressionist story-teller, guiding her constantly as she adapts the written to the spoken, the larger story to the smaller, the longer to the shorter, the distant time and scene to the near, the mature theme to the untutored mind. ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES 97 Select a Single Chain of Scenes Four words here are significant — select^ for adaptation is deliberate, intelligent choice; single, for side issues de- stroy unified impressions; chain, for each link must be securely fastened to its mates; and scenes, for only such parts of the larger story must be shown as may be pre- sented vividly to the mind's eye. "One set of related events," as someone has put it, is all that may safely be selected from the source-story. But each link — each pictured scene — must be dramatic, if the most vivid interest is to be aroused, maintained and increased. By "dramatic" we mean scenes in which something happens. Not merely action, mind you, but action that points either backward to an interesting cause, or forward to a result — a result that is important to the character involved in the happening. Ponder this idea of what is dramatic until it is clear. Let us once more take the runaway Billy Squirrel as an example. We have physical action when we hear that "He leaped over a great fallen tree and ran and ran and ran." Indeed, there is more than physical action— there is part of a scene, but only a part; of dramatic action, however, there is none. How can we transform this mere physical action into dramatic action? In a score of ways that each story-teller may invent for himself. Mr. Black-and-tan Hound is chasing Billy Squirrel, let us say, and is ahnost upon the Uttle chap when Billy spies his friend, Old Father Bull, in the next field, and skurries to him, complaining bitterly of Mr. Hound's attack. 98 children's stories and how to tell them Whereupon Father Bull begins to deal with Mr. Hound, while Billy sits by in safety and gleefully cracks a nut. Here we have cause, action, and effect — drama. How one dramatic scene is linked with another is illus- trated by Billy Squirrel's running — he literally runs out of one scene into another — a narrative method which is infinitely better than first to picture Billy running away from home, leave him and tell about Mr. Black-and-tan Hound, then show Old Father Bull grazing in a distant field, next show the chase, and finally Old Father Bull's intervention. When Billy meets Mr. Hound a scene begins, and the dog's attack opens a dramatic scene, which is linked to the scene of the chase, which in turn is linked to the scene with Father Bull — all by the action of the chief character, Billy Squirrel himself; and the story never shifts from this single viewpoint. Cause, dramatic action, and effect are the essence of simple drama, and when the thing that may happen as an effect of the action produces suspense in the hearer, we have drama in its most intense form, whether for little people or for grown-ups. Furthermore, the drama does not end until the suspense is definitely satisfied. The principle by which scene-links are selected for the chain of dramatic action will become more clear when we come to see what it is that keeps us in suspense while a story is in progress — it is the element of danger to the character who is engaged in the plot-struggle. "What will victory win, is rarely so poignant a question as what defeat will cost. . . . It is the element of reward and penalty — of danger, in other words — that forms suspense. ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES 99 The joys of reward are great only to those who face the danger of loss or non-attainment. What the defeat of the protagonist may mean is what makes the fight 'for blood.' We almost know the outcome — yet we tremble! It is the championship games that count, for defeat means no 'look in' for the finals." ^ Let us now look at the three processes which mark the selection of scene-links for the story-chain, the choice of characters for the story, and the decision as to what details must be used for the setting. Since many printed stories are quite too long for a single telling, Omission is the simplest and the most ob- vious method of adapting them to an audience. But what shall we omit? Each link that is not a necessary part of the single chain of dramatic scenes; everything that suggests another story; all characters that tend to blur the scene by presenting too full a picture; each detail that does not directly add to the clearness of the scene; everything that might confuse the young hearer by raising questions which the story itself does not either answer or cause the child to answer for himself. Again and again and again: That which does not help, hinders. Expansion may be found a more difficult process than condensation. In its simplest aspect it consists of the selecting of a short chain of events, and adding other links to bring the story to a more interesting climax. Or we may choose an especially promising scene and add 1 From J. Berg Esenwein's Introduction to The Technique of Play Writing, by Charlton Andrews. Published uniform with this volume in "The Writer's Library." lOO CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM action — perhaps even another character — so as to make that scene the chief one of all. Or again we may invent additions throughout. Thus a single germ idea, like that of the dispute among the bric-d-brac figures in Ouida's "The Niirnberg Stove," might be made into a story by itself, omitting little August entirely, making the great faience stove, Hirschvogel, the principal character, and devising several linked scenes of dramatic action among the occupants of the old shop. The method may be applied to infinity. Alteration in Story-Telling Method is the final mode of adaptation to be considered. Many stories are not so full as to need drastic cutting, nor so short as to require elaboration, yet they must be changed if the audience of little folk is to enjoy them to the full. Of the many ways of changing a story it seems necessary to name only a few. The order of incidents may be changed so as to direct attention to the point to be brought out. This will best be done when we consider that a story must not only hold interest but must constantly rise in interest — by means of the scene-steps that lead to the high point, or climax. As the difiiculties of Cinderella grow, as August Strehla remains longer and longer in the old stove, as Reynard the Fox plays one trick after another, suspense as to the outcome rises — singularly enough, even after we know what that outcome will be! And this is climax as a process — a series of scene-steps, as we have already reiterated, which lead to the high point, the climax itself. Vividness of narration, as Professor St. John has pointed out in his "Stories and Story-Telling," may ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES lOI also be gained by changing indirect into direct discourse. "And when he came to himself he said, 'I will arise and go to my father,' " is much more effective than if Jesus had said of the Prodigal Son, "And when he came to himself he said that he would go to his father." Greater interest for children is sometimes gained by changing ordinary speech into simple verse — at not too frequent points in the story. This device is used in Joseph Jacobs' rendering of the Universal Cinderella, "The Cinder-Maid," re-told in his "Europa's Fairy Tales:" "Be home, be home ere mid-o'night Or else again you'll be a fright." The literary form of the story will nearly always have to be changed. Language must be simplified by the use of easy yet literary words, and sentence-forms adopted which apply Spencer's well-known law of economy of attention.^ However, the educational value of under- standable literary language beautifully spoken is beyond estimation. Let no teacher or mother ruin the great phrases of literature by translating them into speech that only cheapens, without adding one whit to their clear- ness. If Oliver Wendell Holmes gave thanks for having knocked about among books ever since he was no higher than one of his grandfather's folios, so ought many of us be glad that we early and often heard from the lips of our parents those sonorous and crystal word-sequences with which the Bible, Shakespeare, Milton and Bunyan glorified the Enghsh tongue. Better that the full meaning ^ Philosophy of Style, Herbert Spencer. I02 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM of an occasional phrase should escape the child than that he should miss hearing the simplicity of our inherited speech at its purest and loftiest. The wise will know where to draw the line. This meaningful point must not be dropped without a word on the particular kinds of adapted stories which especially lend themselves to chaste, simple, yet lofty language. The Bible, of course, is first and always the best source-book. The Sagas, too, are rich in sturdy picture-expressions. Scenes from Shakespeare, Milton, Bunyan, and even Dryden will open up opportunities for just what we need. These masters use words that are "current with the audience," yet the verbal arrangement gives them a dignity that must impress good standards upon young minds. This an important distinction. One final observation on the methods of adapting: Whatever changes in the characters, and their words and deeds, you make as you tell a historical story or a Bible tale, be sure that these alterations and additions add to the vividness and present-day interest of the story, without presenting any of the characters as being other than they really were. It is one thing to use imagina- tion, it is quite another so to pervert a character that in after years the child will have to reverse his early im- pressions completely. Write this large in your memory. Now and then, put your own words into the mouths of David, Caesar, and Lincoln, if you can do it well, but let the words be in harmony with the dignity and the tone of the character depicted. If you have not time to find out what that tone was, let the character alone. ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES 1 03 On the other hand, the story-teller may justly pass over unpleasant and even evil incidents in the lives of the great, just as he might omit Jack the Giant Killer's early misconduct, as told in the early versions of that immortal yarn; but he should think twice before vio- lently forcing a "happy ending" upon a world-old story in order to deal with nothing but sugar-coated subjects. The well-known story with an unpleasant ending need not be told at all, but if it is, the ending should not be twisted beyond recognition. Even children love poetic justice, and profit by believing in its prevalence through- out the world. Some Stories for Adaptation In Part III of this volume will be found a considerable list of stories, many of which are suitable to be adapted. More general sources are now to be considered briefly. What incidents in your early fictional reading most impressed you and now linger in your mind? Here is a rich source-spring. The Sagas, "Robinson Crusoe," "Leather-Stocking Tales," Scott's, Tennyson's, and Longfellow's story-poems, Matthew Arnold's " Sorab and Rustum," "The Waverly Novels," Hawthorne, Irving, and scores of others will, on a little thought, re-open their pages and send forth troops of heroes and heroines whose lively adventures may be told in condensed form for children. In choosing among these you will be guid- ed, it may be, by those principles of selection set forth in this treatise which seem to you to be good. This will apply, too, to those world-epics — The Iliad, The Odys- I04 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM sey, The ^Eneid, The Niebelungen Lied, and others not SO well known — which will always remain the richest storehouses of old story.^ Books of folk lore, especially those of a romantic sort, of various nations will likewise be found suggestive. Only assimilate the stories well and they are yours. The stories of The Cid, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Roland, Frithjof, Sigurd, and others — half epic, altogether delightful — will charm and inspire. For expansion, the creations of all the famous fabu- lists — ^sop. La Fontaine, and the rest — will be found inspiring. So will all the books of legends and myths. The longer stories may be handled in any of three ways — in single incidents, in cycles or series, or as con- tinued stories. The occasions at your command and the advancement of your listeners must guide you in your choice. Miss Edna Lyman's recommendations ^ will prove helpful in arranging cycles of stories. Her chapters on "National Epic Tales," and ''How to Use These Epic Tales," are valuable. One program out of the ten that she gives, with source references, is the following, based on Baldwin's "Story of Roland:" Roland's Boyhood; Baldwin, pp. 1-3 1. Ogier the Dane; pp. 47-70. Ogier and Roland Knighted; pp. 70-80. How Ogier Won Horse and Sword; pp. 81-96. 1 The Book of the Epic, by H. A. Guerber (J. B. Lippincott Co.), tells in brief form the story of practically all the great epics. It is an invaluable source-book. ^ Story-Telling— What to Tell and How to Tell It, Edna Lyman. ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES I05 Roland's Arms; pp. 97-113- A Roland for an Oliver; pp. 114-132. Princess of Cathay; pp. 175-217. How Ogier Refused a Kingdom; pp. 240-244. How Ogier Slew the Sea Monster; pp. 245-254. A Contest for Durandal; pp. 317-328. How Roland Became His Own Shadow; pp. 328-343; 357-360. The Treachery of Ganelon and Roland's Death; pp. 383-400. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. What is the difference between a story adapted and a story re-told? 2. Make a list of the reasons that might lead one to adapt a story for telling to children. 3. Which of these reasons would especially influence you if you were to tell the story to children of (a) from 4 to 6? (b) from 7 to 10? (c) from 11 to 14? Remember that not age, strictly, but stage of development must govern. 4. Review chapters I to III, making a list of the various principles which might well govern us in adapting stories. 5. Precisely how does a story told orally differ from a written or a printed story? 6. Select a story for adaptation and analyze the original by giving (a) a brief statement of the plot; (b) a list of the principal characters; (c) minor characters present and speaking; (d) minor characters present but not speaking — if any; (e) minor characters merely named — if any; (/) a very brief out- line of the setting, or surroundings; (g) the several incidents and their relative importance in the story. 7. Set down in outline a list of the scenes you would like to use in your adapted story. Learn to separate a single story- thread from the more intricately twisted story for maturer minds. io6 children's stories and how to tell them 8. After considering the two demands for dramatic scenes and for arrangement of scenes so that interest should grow to a climax, re-arrange the order of your scenes, if necessary. 9. Point out how your adapted story differs from the original, and briefly show why you made the changes. 10. Explain what Dr. Walter L. Hervey, in his "Picture Work," means when he advises those who would re-tell a story to "See it. Feel it. Shorten it. Expand it. Master it. Repeat it." 11. (a) To what books would you go in order to fill yourself with the atmosphere of the times of which Homer sang? (&) The times of Robin Hood? (c) King Arthur? (d) Some other hero? 12. In your own words tell what is meant by focusing a story. 13. Read the original and criticise the adaptation of any story in this collection. 14. Give three original examples of a dramatic scene, in brief outline. 15. Write out one as it should be told. 16. Relate it orally without committing it. 17. From the stories in this book give three examples of suspense. 18. Give also three examples of how the idea of danger is used to increase suspense. 19. In outline, show how you would adapt any chosen story, chiefly by omission. 20. Do the same with a fable, using expansion. 21. Do the same with another chosen story, using any form or forms of alteration you prefer. ADAPTING STORIES FROM GREAT SOURCES 107 22. In any of the three foregoing instances, tell why you made the adaptation as you did, and what class or age of hearers you had in view. 23. Adapt a story from (a) The Bible; (b) any other famous source. Use notes only — do not write out the story. 24. Tell the story. 25. What is the difference between a series and a serial story? 26. Make a list of subjects for a series of stories from some epic, or group of hero-tales, like Miss Lyman's cycle of stories about Roland. 27. Outline roughly a serial from any epic with which you are familiar. 28. Give your views of the "happy ending" as appHed to children's stories. GRIST FROM OTHER MILLS •"Anyone can put in everything. It is only the born story- teller, or one who will sit down by the side of a child and pa- tiently observe the points that the child sees and likes to hear, that can be trusted to put in and leave out just the right points." — Walter L. Hervey, Picture Work. The first law of story-telling. . . . "Every man is bound to leave a story better than he found it." — Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Robert Elsmere. CHAPTER X TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES I sing about the things I think Of almost everything. Sometimes I don't know what to think Till I begin to sing. — Josephine Preston Peabody, The Green Singing Book. Those who enter upon this chapter with the serious purpose of learning to tell or write original stories for children should scan each of the preceding chapters to see that the fundamentals of purpose, structure and methods of presentation are not forgotten, for throughout the present treatment it is assumed that the reader is familiar with the principles thus far discussed. These principles should be observed carefully, both in attempt- ing to write original stories for children and in guiding their own efforts at creative expression. Why Tell Original Stories? The need for the purely original story is not great. There is such a mass of vigorous old tales which meet the child's own interest, and which by many tests have been found to correspond so well to his various stages of de- velopment and give him the right life-attitudes and a rich background of culture, that the story-teller would do TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES I09 better to select carefully, instead of presenting an original story, unless he is very sure of his own power and of the worth of his own message. There is real danger for the child in the flood of stories which is poured out for him today. Not more stories but better stories should be the slogan of all who are sincere in their interest in stories and in children. The story that is worth the telling is worth teUing many times. The child does not tire of it. If you doubt this, try telling some familiar tale like "Sleeping Beauty" or "Tom Tit Tot" to a group of children of ten or twelve. It is with stories as with all true literature: the charm holds, and there is an added message at each stage of life. Of course there does come a time when the child wants a new story. Then, if the story-teller does not have access to sufficient material, the original story becomes an important resource. Then, too, there is occasionally a person who can tell new stories that possess the child- like spirit, and can open up fresh fields which are adapted to the needs of the little hearers. Such stories may lack the merits of the classics, but if they strike fire in the story-teller's own spirit, they will doubtless kindle a kindred spark in the spirit of the child. It is out of the need for special stories to fit pecuhar wants that the chief opportunity for the original story grows. It is far more important that the story-teller study the need of the child and seek to find a story es- pecially suited to meet that need than it is for a teacher or a parent to cultivate her own talent for origination. no CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM Story-tellers who practice on children, with no care for the special effect of their work, do not understand how vital it is that only right stories, told with attention to producing right impressions, should be narrated. A child of five will re-tell with astounding fidelity to detail a story heard a year before, and not since repeated. A child of six who heard a story told to an audience of adults waited eagerly for a year to reach the story-teller with the request to hear the story again. Another child of nine read one of Byron's long story-poems, and car- ried the details in mind until adult understanding gave interpretation to the thing which had no meaning when read. These incidents are mentioned to impress the im- portance of care in the selection and presentation of stories. There is a strong emotional appeal in a story which leaves an indelible impression on the child. We should not dare to practice on sensitive, impression- able beings who may be irrevocably warped by mistakes. The mother or the teacher who realizes the power of the story will give such time and thought to the prepara- tion that she will have a fund of great stories. If she has the happy gift of facility in devising stories, she will cultivate this endowment. Necessity has been credited with being a fertile mother, but practice is an equally fruitful parent. The need of the hour will find those un- prepared who do not cultivate the gift that is in them. There may be a few who will be able to invent as they go, telling naturally an almost perfect story, but the great majority of us need to prepare thoughtfully. TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES III Where to Find Story Mater ial Sometimes the germ for a story just pops into the mind. No need for hunting the story-protoplasm in its lair for those to whom it comes thus readily. Many there are, however, who must chase and beat the bushes until a suitable suggestion appears. Since the children's story is not so complex in structure as is much of the fiction affected by adults, we need not seek so far for fresh themes as must our brother the magazine writer, for no one is likely to accuse us of plagiarism if we revamp old story-ideas. Here our pur- pose is not to attain to absolute originality— if, indeed, anywhere in fiction such a thing is any longer possible. In going to the stories of others for hints or plot-germs, you may examine, first, the kinds of stories, to find out whether one sort especially suits the two foundation re- quirements—the particular need that calls for a story, and your own limitations of knowledge and ability. For example, a fairy story may seem out of harmony with your purpose, a travel story beyond your equipment, and a humorous story not consonant with your mood. Thus the whole range of kinds may be searched over until one stands out the best. Locality is a fertile field for story-ideas. The hill country will suggest original tales of gnomes and hunters, of beasts and trees, of streams and torrents, of clouds and peaks. Imitation of the methods of great story- tellers will be of help here as everywhere. The big hills and the little ones may converse. The mountains may 112 be made to war with each other. We may tell a story of how Old Baldy got the hole in his side, or of how Mister Coyote grew his brush, or of how the Cascade made a wash basin for Father Grizzly — scores of moun- tain facts and fancies will arise when imagination is set to work. In the same way the plain, the desert, the farm, the waters, the sea shore, the city, the village, will suggest themes connected with prairie hens and jack rabbits, cactus and sand dune, dolphin and trout, shells and sea weed, chimneys and motor cars, steeples and vegetable gardens, cows and horses — each teeming with stories of its own. Family legends and anecdotes , of past days and present, tales of hero ancestors, of what father and mother did, and especially bits of the child's own history, serve an excellent purpose. Special times and seasons, sports and games, bird, fish and animal life, travel scenes and odd experiences, one winter's snows and last summer's drought, particularly tales of pure human interest, open up endless stores of material. See all with the creative idea, with thought for the purpose of the story, but constantly using care lest the teaching lapse into moralizing. Avoiding the Threadbare While strict originality is not demanded for the sort of stories we are now considering, it is well nigh useless to turn to the time-worn theme when a little effort will yield something more fresh. The children in a given group are pretty sure to have heard so often the story of Rain TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES II3 Drop's Travels, the experiences of Billy Bunny, and the adventures of Bre'r Rabbit that, unless you prefer to tell the stories in their classic forms, a new twist will be needed, if not an entirely fresh theme. Old characters, indeed, please both grown-ups and youngsters, but we all demand that familiar characters now and then act in new fields and have novel relations with each other. The Development of the Plot Here again the story-teller must be warned not to essay the compHcated. The very word "plot" calls up to many a bugaboo of difficulty. As we have said, plot in children's stories is a very simple matter, yet in many stories it is definitely present as a framework for the structure. Angela M. Keyes, in her "Stories and Story-Telling," says that there are really only four kinds of plots in any good story for children. This has been elaborated by WiUiam Byron Forbush ^ as follows: "First, 'a single line of sequence.' This is illustrated in such a story as 'The Sleeping Beauty,' in which the action moves steadily along a single line from one exciting event to the next. Second, 'the three-parallel line.' In such stories we are shown what the first did, what the second did, and what the third did, and the climax is usually in the third, and often the stupid third member of the family turns out to be the cleverest and the most favored of fortune. Third, 'two contrasting courses of action placed side by side.' In such a story, we learn, first, what the beautiful person did and then what the ugly person did; what the industrious child did and what the idle one did, ^ Manual of Stories. 114 children's stories and how to tell them as in 'Diamonds and Toads,' 'Cinderella,' etc. Fourth, 'the cumulative plan,' illustrated in 'The House that Jack Built,' in which there are repetitions and added incidents and plots, and to each subject there is a new interest." The essence of plot in fiction of all kinds is this: Some- thing happens to break the usual course of events, and this something works out in an unusual way. This cross- roads, or twist, or crucial happening may be planned by following the three-question method suggested in another chapter: What obstacle, or struggle, or crisis, or mix-up, or twist in the situation would offer interesting possibili- ties? What cause or event led up to it? What results from it? Take any familiar story and analyze it by asking three similar questions, and the plot-action is laid bare. Simi- larly, it is well to practice on plot-building from simple situations so as to excite wonder or surprise, and yet make the outcome seem natural — once the groundwork of the story is accepted as being, for the time, believable. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. If you have had any experience in telling stories extem- poraneously — without any conscious preparation, that is — tell (a) what difficulties confronted you; (6) whether the results were as satisfactory as when you prepared. 2. In your opinion, is originality helped or hindered by preparation? How? 3. From memory, name any principles of story-selection and story-structure, treated in earlier chapters, that obviously apply to the invention of original stories. 4. Are there any reasons why you prefer not to invent stories? TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES II 5 5. Are there any reasons why you prefer to tell original stories? 6. If so, what sort or sorts do you like best? Why? 7. Name (a) a locality, (b) a season and (c) any other source of story-germs which suggest to you stories. 8. Give a simple outline of one such original story, saying, if possible, how the idea arose in your mind. 9. Make a list of as many fresh ideas for stories as you can, stating each in a rather short sentence, somewhat like this: How old Mount Baldy got the hole in his side; How the steeple lost its chime of bells; The triumph of Waki the surf-rider. 10. Write any one story in full. 11. Tell it publicly, after careful preparation, but without committing it verbally to memory. 12. What do you understand by a time-worn or trite theme, and how may triteness be avoided? 13. In your experience, are the best themes spontaneously bom, consciously sought out, or first bom and then made by working over them? 14. Analyze the plots of three stories and show the three elements — foundation, twist or crisis, and outcome. 15. Give one additional example of each of the four kinds of stories named by Angela M. Keyes. 16. Constmct an original story-plot after any one of these four kinds, saying which method you are pursuing. 17. Without writing out the story in full, but carefully preparing the opening and the closing words, tell the story. CHAPTER XI HELPING CHILDREN TO INVENT STORIES There are times in a child's life when it suddenly leaps into larger growth, as the imprisoned bud blooms larger than its promise. . . . Knowledge comes to the child, especially all the subtler knowledge of time, of space, of love, in a vague, indefinite, unconscious way, developing out of the child's or- ganic self as a flower blooms. This knowledge comes to definite knowledge for an instant only and then returns to the subcon- sciousness, waiting the next day of warm sun, shining water, and smell of spring. Each time it stays longer, till at last the child can contemplate his own thought and finally express it. These times form our real life epochs. — Hamlin Garland, Rose of Butcher's Coolly. We must leave to others the pedagogical study of what benefit the child receives when he himself tells stories. It is enough to say here that in learning to model his invention, his language, his bearing, and his simple dra- matic manner upon the methods of the teacher he gains as much as he can gain in any exercise that is largety imitative and repetitive even while it is creative. The same may be said for teaching children to dramatize stories.^ But just as valuable as the child's re-telling of stories is his origination of them, and this may be encouraged — but not required — in simple ways so as to cultivate the ^ See "Grist from Other Mills," appended to this chapter. HELPING CHILDREN TO INVENT STORIES II7 imagination, the language sense, the feeling for locality, dramatic values, and, best of all, moral feeling. In fact, the child may be led to teach himself the essence of well- nigh all that the story-teller can teach him. In her valuable book, "The Art of the Story-Teller," Marie L. Shedlock quotes from the French psychologist, Queyrat, in his ^^Jeux de VEnfance,^^ a short original story composed by a child of five: "One day I went to sea in a lifeboat — all at once I saw an enormous whale, and I jumped out of the boat to catch him, but he was so big that I climbed on his back and rode astride, and all the little fishes laughed to see." "Here is another," Miss Shedlock continues, "offered by Loti, but the age of the child is not given : ** 'Once upon a time a little girl out in the Colonies cut open a huge melon, and out popped a green beast and stung her, and the little child died.' "Loti adds: " 'The phrases "out in the Colonies" and "a huge melon" were enough to plunge me suddenly into a dream. As by an apparition, I beheld tropical trees, forests alive with marvelous birds. Oh! the simple magic of the words "the Colonies!" In my childhood they stood for a multitude of distant sun- scorched countries, with their palm-trees, their enormous flow- ers, their black natives, their wild beasts, their endless possibili- ties of adventure.' " Obviously, these stories are typical in content, if not also in form, of what any imaginative — that is, picture- making — child-mind would produce, and as such we see in each not only the outline of a story but the kernel of romance. It means much in the development of the child to give issue to such completely related concepts. ii8 Helps to the Child's Invention Sheer imitation aside, which is almost certain to be seen the first in any child's efforts at story-making, a satisfactory first step in invention is taken by having him tell stories from pictures. The same methods which have been outlined in Chapter VIII, for the adult, may with modifications be used to lead out the gifts of the child. A next step is that of having the child place spots, lines, and other arbitrary figures on the blackboard to mark the elements of the story, as, "Here is the road, , and here is the little house, D , and here are the two boys, I I ." With these materials, and a little time given for thought, the story soon comes out. Later scenes in the story may be indicated in the same way. Of course the value of the diagram lies in holding the very young mind to the place and the persons in the story. Older children are helped more effectively by setting before them the elements which they are to use in de- vising their stories, thus: The place where the story begins The people in the story The thing they start to do What happens to them How they get out of the trouble The place, people, etc., should not be set down, but merely kept in mind. Or, again, the three-question method, referred to in chapters VIII and X, may wisely be used. The im- HELPING CHILDREN TO INVENT STORIES 119 portant thing is to avoid setting up limits for the fancy ^ while yet showing the child what it is that makes a set of happenings become a story. If the child can be led to ask himself guiding questions, the educational value of the exercise is, of course, so much the greater. But any method that will help the little story-teller to picture the scenes, one leading surely into the other, and all moving forward to some precon- ceived end, will be of definite value. The two kinds of stories which best lend themselves to child-narration are the simple chain of incidents, and the parallel plot — the story that tells first of the Ogre, say, and then of the Prince, and what he does to the Ogre. This story-plan may be illustrated on the board by a Y laid upon its side, >^ , for after hearing first of the Ogre's treatment of the Little Maid and of the journey of the Prince, we learn how the antagonists come together in a struggle and, the Ogre having been killed, we see how that the fortunes of the Prince and the Little Maid are united. Of course, other simple diagrams to help the small in- ventor steer a well-planned course, such as a chain, and other arbitrary symbols of plot-movement, may also be devised. Like adults, children often need a start. Sometimes an opening setting and one or more of the characters may be suggested in a single sentence, as: "On a snowy day three fat sparrows were sitting around a piece of bread that a little boy had dropped out of his lunch basket"— then the child is encouraged to take up the I20 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM story. At times flagging invention may be stimulated by brief leading questions. Thus the young fictionist is en- couraged to stand more and more on his own feet. Still older children are helped to invention by showing them that story-situations are essentially of these four kinds: A usual or commonplace happening in usual circum- stances. A usual happening in unusual circumstances. An unusual happening in ordinary circumstances. An unusual happening in extraordinary circumstances. The following stories by children are not given as being exceptional, but as typical of what may be done with average children varying from eight to eleven years of age: A FABLE ABOUT THE BEE AND THE KITTEN By Max Irland Once there was a little Kitten that thought she knew every- thing, so she said: "I am going out to conquer the world." Off she started, and then she saw a queer thing buzzing along in the air. *'Buzzzz! You sing and I sting." "I am going to catch you," said the Kitten. " Oho ! ' ' said the Stranger. "BuzzzzI B U Z Z Z !'' Soon the children saw a white streak fly across the yard. "Ah!" said the Kitten, "I am still too young to conquer the world." And she never did. THE TWO MICE AND THE CAT By Helen Tastet In a small hole in the pantry wall lived two mice. One was old and the other was young. In the house they lived in was a Cat who loved mice for his dinner. HELPING CHILDREN TO INVENT STORIES 121 One evening the Young Mouse said: "I am going out to hunt for food." The Older Mouse said: "Be careful of the Cat." The Young Mouse did not take heed, but scampered through the hall into the dining-room, and then into the kitchen. In a dark comer the Cat was quietly waiting for the Mouse. As the careless Young Mouse went past, the Cat sprang upon him and killed him. The Old Mouse was sorry, but she shook her head and said: "They must have their trials." THE OLD FISH AND THE YOUNG FISH By Harold Klein Once there was an old fish and a young fish. One day, as they were swimming, the young fish darted at a worm which he saw. His mother tried to keep him from eating it, for she knew it was a trap to catch them. But the young fish, heedless to his mother's advice, went on. He snapped at the worm, and to his surprise he couldn't swim back, for the worm was on a hook to catch foolish fishes. THE MOUSE AND THE CAT By Persis Birtwell Once upon a time there was a little Mouse, and his Mother was out. She had told him not to go away from home while she was gone, but he thought he could take care of himself, so he went out. As he was out playing, he saw a Cat. He said to himself: "I am not afraid of a little Cat." So he walked boldly up and said, "Come on and have a race, I bet you can't catch me. So the Cat agreed and said, "Where shall we begin?" "At that stump, and run down to that tree." "All right," said the Cat. But soon the Mouse got tired and the Cat caught him and ate him for lunch. After a while the Old Mouse came home, and she knew the whole story. All she could do was to sit and cry. Pretty soon a Cat came and ate her up. So that was the end of the Mouse Family. 122 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM If the mother or the teacher is sympathetic in attitude and avoids comment which causes self-consciousness, it is easy to lead even the very small child to tell stories with great joy. The listening adult should be guarded, even in facial expression. A smile at the wrong time may cause a fit of shyness which can be overcome only with great difficulty. The child's first stories should be voluntary. He should never be asked to tell a story for the sake of "showing off." "I know a story," or "I'll tell a story if you'll tell me one," is a common response of the four- year-old who hears stories. This suggestion should be met with quiet interest. Sometimes the story is a re- telling of one which has been heard a number of times. Sometimes it will be a combination of a number of stories strung together into one. Sometimes it will be an exact account of an actual happening, sometimes an imagina- tive tale based on some occurrence. One four-year-old who is particularly fond of the story of "Snowball's Christmas Eve," told in this volume, volunteered to tell a story. She told the story exactly as given, except that she substituted her little dog for the cat. She kept him as the hero throughout the story, imitating the barking of the dog instead of the meowing of the cat. A child of five who had a little Swedish doll asked to have a story told about the doll. "I don't know any story about it," she was told. "Well, I do," washer response, and she told this story: "Away over in a big store in Sweden there was a little Doll. The little Doll did so want to have a Mother. She kept sajdng, HELPING CHILDREN TO INVENT STORIES 1 23 'Oh, I wish I had a Mother!' But she had only the big Store- man. "One day, a nice Nurse came into the store. 'I want that little Doll,' she said. She gave the Storeman some money, and took the little Doll away. She took her on a big boat and there was a great storm on the ocean. "But by and by, they reached this country. The Nurse came to Washington, and the little Doll was with her. There she found a nice Httle girl for her Mother, and the little girl's name was Helen Louise." This story had its basis of fact, but the imaginative quality is charming. If the child is given carefully se- lected, well-told stories, he will unfailingly give some form of creative return. It may be an attempt at illustration, it may be in dramatization, it may be merely questions or conversation, it may be in the invention of original stories. Whatever the form, the response is sure, for when his emotions are stirred, and his imagination fired, he must find some means of self-expression. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. Should story-telling by children be set as a required exercise in the lower grades, or should volunteers be called for? 2. How might the teacher's attitude guard against the danger to a sensitive child in having his serious efforts at story- telling laughed at by his schoolmates? 3. Of the seven little stories quoted in this chapter, which do you like best, and why? 4. Which next best, and why? 5. Which shows the most imagination? 6. Which is the most complete? 7. Invent three opening sentences which might be used to start a child on an original story. 8. At home, or elsewhere, carefully select a picture, induce a 124 children's stories and how to tell them child to tell a story about it, and set down the story as exactly as you can from memory. 9. What facts or theories can you deduce from this experi- ence? Your theories will have added value if you repeat this experiment a number of times. 10. How far is it wise to help a child tell a story? GRIST FROM OTHER MILLS Chapter V, in How to Tell Stories to Children, by Sara Cone Bryant, discusses helpfully the three forms of having children give back the story to the story-teller, so as to result in "the freeing and developing of the power of expression in the pupils." The first is re-telling the stories. The second is "a kind of 'seat work.' The children are allowed to make original illustrations of the stories by cutting silhouette pictures," The third is dramatizing the stories, in which the children choose characters from the stories, and both repeat the dialogue and act out the scenes. This chapter gives some interesting suggestions for dramatizing stories. A unique plan for dramatizing old and new stories has been devised by Mrs. Mary Lowe, by means of her "Bottle People." Out of empty bottles, "dressed up," are created enough dolls to represent all the characters in any story. The story is then told by causing the "Bottle People" to enact the several parts taken by the characters. The method is fully explained in William Byron Forbush's Manual of Stories. This book also contains a chapter on "Dramatizing Stories," which quotes freely the methods used by teachers and story-tellers in helping children to dramatize. Some suggestions on the subject will be found in Chapter V, "Use of the Story in Primary Grades," in The Art oj Story-Telling, by Julia Darrow Cowles. LilHan Edith Nixon, in "Fairy Tales a Child Can Read and Act," recommends for children up to the second grade several stories as suitable for dramatizing: Little Red Riding Hood, Peter and the Magic Goose (original). The Blue Peacock, The Ant and the Cricket, Hansel and Gretel, Stories from "Pinoc- chio," Scenes from "Alice in Wonderland," Scenes from "Through the Looking Glass." PART II FIFTY STORIES TO TELL TO CHILDREN CHIEFLY RE-TOLD OR ORIGINALLY PRESENTED BY MARIETTA STOCKARD WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS FOLK AND FAIRY STORIES ANIMAL STORIES BIBLE STORIES PATRIOT STORIES THANKSGIVING STORIES CHRISTMAS STORIES SPRING STORIES HERO STORIES CHAPTER XII STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS For him there's a story in every breeze And a picture in every wave. — Thomas Moore, Boat Glee. This group of five stories, with the supplementary list of twelve others named in Part III, has been tested with children of from three to five years old. The stories are offered as a partial answer to the request of numerous mothers who have said, "Please give me some stories for very little children. " Every mother tells the child "make-up" stories embody- ing his own adventures — ^stories of walks, of going to meet Daddy, of baby's kitty or doggie, of dolly, of the tired, sleepy baby whose mother has put him in his little white bed. The mother's instinct and the memory of her own childish likes lead her inevitably to Mother Goose, Golden Hair and the Three Bears, Three Pigs, The Old Woman and the Pig — then her treasure-trove is exhausted, and the story-hungry child still clamors, "Tell me a story!" A study of the stories here given and listed later will prove helpful in the selection of others. The story for the little child must be exceedingly simple in plot. It should deal chiefly with objects he has touched and seen, with experiences he has had. It must be full of action, and 128 children's stories and how to tell them told in language he can understand. It must be based in his real interests. For example, Miss O'Grady's "Go To Sleep Story," from "The Story-Teller's Book," is an excellent type of tale for the child of two-and-a-half or three. It deals with an every-day occurance in the child's life; it is Baby Ray's sleepy time. Mother is in it, too, and each baby sees his own dearest experience mirrored when Baby Ray is lifted in his mother's arms. Every child delights in stories of living things, and to this is added his love of rythmic repetition when Baby Ray's doggie comes to say good night to Baby Ray, and his mother puts him into a song: "One little doggie that was given him to keep. Came to see if Baby Ray was asleep, sleep, sleep!" The story continues until dog, cats, rabbits, ducks, geese and chickens, all going to sleep, just as Baby Ray does, have been woven into the mother's song. The child's nearness to his mother, his love of and in- terest in animals, his own every-day experience, are given form in words which he can understand. It does for him what every story should do — it gives new meaning and in- terest to his own experience, it deepens his emotions, it develops his command of words. The story for the little child must give pictures, with little description, for it must be remembered that name- words and action-words are his first acquisitions in lan- guage. His interest is in things and in deeds, rather than in appearances or in feelings. He cares nothing for motives. He cannot follow involved processes of reasoning, so "plot- STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS 129 complication" and "periods of suspense" do not belong to his stories. Cause and result must develop in such close sequence that he can grasp their relation. The tale must run in straight lines to a well-defined, inevitable climax. When telling stories to very little children, the story-teller should be most deliberate in her presentation. Though without faltering, or dragging her speech, she should give the child time to form one picture before she develops the next. Her articulation should be perfect, for the child grasps words slowly. Her English should be simple, but unfailingly correct, for the child's habits of speech are formed in his first nine years. Her manner should be in- teresting and charged with vitality, but never over- dramatic; better no stories than over-stimulation. The child should be encouraged to talk freely— sooner or later— about every story he hears, but the story-teller should never moralize, nor attempt to answer all his questions for him. It is often well to leave him wondering. She should never answer in such a way as to limit his thought or curb his imagination. If his mind is grasping for a fact, she should guide him only so far as he is unable to go alone, then leave to him the growth and the joy of discovering the fact for hunself . If the answer to his ques- tion lies in the realm of creative fancy, she should let him keep the wings of his own imagining, rather than substi- tute her own. ^ The carefully selected, well-told story should be given to the little child over and over again until it becomes a part of himself. Then he should be encouraged to re-tell 130 children's stories and how to tell them it, to dramatize it, and so to make it a means of self- expression. THUMBELINA This story, from Hans Christian Andersen's "Thumbling," has been adapted by some story-teller unknown, and many kindergartners have used it successfully with very small children. The problem of the right story for the very Httle ones is so great that none which proves satisfactory should be lost; therefore, with acknowledgments to the adapter, I offer this version, which has been slightly modified through the responses of numerous groups of five-year-olds. A careful study of Andersen's story will show how well the adapter has kept the spirit and meaning of the original. The adventures in this version are more beautiful, more interesting, and more within the range of experience of the child, than are those portrayed by Andersen. In the original, The Little Princess, sprung from the heart of a flower, finds her place among her own flower-folk after many sad adventures. Thumbelina in this version leaves her Mother for a day of simple, delightful adventure and returns to her in the evening. So each goes out from her own, and in the end returns to her own, her Hfe enriched by the ex- periences of her travel. That this is the favorite story of the children in the kinder- garten, year after year, is sufficient proof of its value. Once upon a time there was a little girl no bigger than her Mother's thumb, and so they called her ^'ThumbeHna." Thumbelina did not sleep in a little white bed, as you do; her bed was the half of a walnut shell. Her Mother covered her with pink rose leaves for blankets, when she curled up for a cozy nap. By and by, when Thumbelina had grown large enough to run about wherever she wished to go, she started for a walk one beautiful sunshiny morn- ing. She had not gone very far when she heard something STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS I31 coming hoppity-skip, hoppity-skip behind her. She turned around, and there she saw a great big green Grass- hopper. "How do you do, Thumbehna?" he said. "Wouldn't you like to go for a ride this morning?' ' "I should like it very much," said Thumbelina. "Very well, hop up on my back," said the Grasshopper. So Thumbelina hopped up on his back, and away they went, hoppity-skip, hoppity-skip, through the grass. Thumbelina thought it was the finest ride she had ever had. After a while the Grasshopper stopped and let her get down off his back. "Thank you, Mr. Grasshopper," said Thumbelina. " It was very good of you to take me for a ride. " "I'm glad you enjoyed it," said the Grasshopper. "You may go again some day. Good-by." And away he went, hoppity-skip, hoppity-skip, through the grass, while Thumbelina went on her walk. She walked on and on until she came to a river, and as she stood on the bank, looking down into the shining water, a Fish came swimming up. "How do you do, Thumbelina?" he said. "How do you do, Mr. Fish?" said Thumbelina. "Wouldn't you like to go for a sail this morning?" asked the Fish. " Yes, indeed, " said Thumbelina, " but there is no boat." "Wait a moment, " said the Fish, and he flirted his tail, and darted away through the water. Presently he came swimming back to the bank, and in his mouth he held the stem of a lily leaf. 132 children's stories and how to tell them "Step down on this; it will make a fine boat." Thumbelina stepped down on the lily leaf and sat care- fully in the middle of it. The Fish kept the stem in his mouth, and swam away down the stream. Overhead the birds were singing, along the bank the flowers were bloom- ing, and over the edge of the leaf Thumbelina could see the fishes darting here and there through the water. So they sailed and sailed down the river. But at last the Fish took her back to the bank again. "Thank you for the sail, Mr. Fish," Thumbelina said as she stepped off on to the bank. "I never had such a good time in all my life. " "I'm glad you enjoyed it, Thumbelina. Good-by for today." The Fish darted away through the water, and Thumbe- lina turned to go home. Just then Mrs. Mouse came run- ning up. "How do you do, Thumbelina?" she said. "Won't you come home with me and see my babies?" "I'd love to," said Thumbelina, and she clapped her hands in glee. Mrs. Mouse's home was quite a way down imder the ground. Thumbelina crept through the long dark passage- way to the cozy room in which Mrs. Mouse and her three babies lived. They all ran races up and down the long pas- sageway, and Thumbelina tasted the dried peas which Mrs. Mouse had brought home with her. "I think I must go home now," Thumbelina said at last, "my Mother will be wondering where I am. " So she said good-bye to them all and started off home. STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS 1 33 She had not walked very far along the path through the field when she heard something saying: "Peep, peep," in a weak, sick little voice. Thumbelina looked, and there close beside her in the grass she saw a little Bird; his eyes were shut, and he looked very sick, ''Why, what's the matter, Httle Bird?" said Thumbelina. "Oh, I have a thorn in my foot, and it does hurt so. " "Let me see," said Thimibelina. "Perhaps I can help you. " She looked carefully, and there she saw the thorn stick- ing in the poor Bird's foot. She took her little fingers and pulled it out, as gently as she could. Then she fetched some clear, cold water and bathed the wounded foot. The Bird felt so much better that he opened his eyes. "Why, it is Thumbelina!" he said. "How did you know my name?" said Thumbelina, in surprise. "That's easy to explain," said the Bird. "My nest is up in a tree, close beside your window. I often hear your Mother calling you. But are you not a long way from home?" "Yes, I am, " said Thumbelina. "I was hurrying home when I found you. " "Well," said the Bird, "if you will climb up on my back, I'll take you there, far more quickly than you can run. " So Thumbelina climbed up on the Birdie's back. "Hold on tight," he said, as he spread his wings and flew swiftly up above the tree tops. He went so high that sometimes they skimmed along through the clouds, and so fast that Thumbelina could 134 CHILDREN S STORIES AND HOW TO TELL THEM hardly get her breath; but still she thought it was very wonderful, and she was not a bit afraid. Soon the Bird lit right in the window of ThumbeHna's own room. She climbed down off his back, and thanked him for bringing her home. Then she ran away to find her Mother, and tell her all about the wonderful things which had been happen- ing to her that day. THE GOATS IN THE RYE FIELD (Re-Told from the Norse) The power and helpfulness of small things is a delight to the youngest children. Without any words from the story-teller they readily see themselves in such stories. The little poem and song called "Helpful," from "Songs of a Little Child's Days," is an excellent supplement to this entire group of stories. One bright morning Johnny was driving his goats to pasture. He trudged along whistling, and paying but little attention to the goats, when suddenly he saw them all running toward the farmer's rye field. There was a hole in the fence, which the leader of the goats had seen, and before Johnny could stop them, they all scrambled through and were busily eating the rye. Johnny knew that this would never do, so he climbed over the fence, took a stick, and tried to drive them out. But they would not go — they only ran round and round the field. Johnny ran after them until he was so tired he could run no farther, then he crawled through the hole in the fence, sat down by the roadside, and began to cry. Just then a Fox came down the road. STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS 135 "Good morning, Johnny, why are you crying?" asked the Fox. *'I'm crying because I can^t get the goats out of the rye field," said Johnny. "Oh, don't cry about that! I'll drive them out easily; watch me!" said the Fox. He leaped over the fence and began to chase the goats. Round and round they ran, and nothing could get them to go near the hole in the fence. At last the Fox was so tired that he could run no more, so he crawled through the hole in the fence, sat down beside Johnny, and began to cry. Then a Rabbit came hopping down the road. When he saw Johnny and the Fox he stopped still. "Why are you crying. Fox?" he asked. "I'm crying because Johnny is crying," said the Fox. "Why are you crying, Johnny?" "I'm crying because I can't get the goats out of the rye field," said Johnny. "Tut, tut ! " said the Rabbit, 'what a thing to cry about! Watch me. I'll soon drive them out. " The Rabbit hopped over the fence, and round and round the field he chased those goats; but they would not go near the hole in the fence. At last the Rabbit was so tired he could not hop another hop, so he crawled through the fence, sat down beside the Fox, and began to cry. While they were all crying away, along came a little Bee. She stopped in surprise. " Good morning. Rabbit, whatever are you crying about this lovely morning? " "I'm crying because the Fox is crying," answered the Rabbit. 136 "And why are you crying, Fox?" "I'm crying because Johnny is crying. " "Why are you crying, Johnny?" "Boo hoo!" sobbed Johnny, "I'm crying because I can't get the goats out of the rye field! " " Don't cry about that. I'll get them out for you, " said the Bee. Johnny was so surprised that he stopped crying; then he began to laugh. "What! A little thing like you drive them out when I couldn't do it!" he shouted. "And when I could not!" said the Fox. "And when I could not!" said the Rabbit. Then they all began to laugh. The little Bee didn't say a word. She flew over the fence and flew right to the ear of the leader of the goats. " Buzz- zip ! " She went in one ear. The goat shook his head, and the little Bee flew to the other side. " Buzz-zip ! " She went in that ear. The goat started running toward the hole in the fence. The little Bee never stopped buzzing in his ear until he ran out of the field. And all the other goats fol- lowed after him. Johnny, the Fox, and the Rabbit stared at each other in surprise. "Thank you, httle Bee," said Johnny, and he ran after his goats to the pasture. THE BILLY-GOATS GRUFF {From the Norse) There is a never-failing appeal to the child in stories of animals — of which more later; but there are other characteristics which STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS 137 combine to make this old story a favorite. The sense of size as conveyed through the voice, the repetition, the thrill that is almost fear yet holding no grewsome quality, the final overthrow of the Troll by the hero (the Biggest Billy-Goat Gruff), the action, the simplicity, and the appeal to imagination — all unite to make it the finest type of story for the younger children. Careful study of this and similar stories will give the mother an excellent basis of selection for stories. The adaptation is from "Popular Tales from the Norse," by George Webbe Dasent, by courteous permission of the publishers, G. Putnam's Sons, New York. Once upon a time there were three billy-goats, and the name of all three was Gruff. One fine day they said to each other, ^' Let's go up on the hillside, and eat grass, and make ourselves fat. " The youngest of the three started off first. After a while, he came to a bridge, under which Hved an ugly Troll, with eyes as big as a saucer, and a nose as long as a poker. As the Smallest Billy-Goat Gruff went trip, trap, trip, trap over the bridge, the Troll roared out, "WHO'S THAT tripping over my bridge? " "It's I, the Smallest Billy-Goat Gruff. I'm going up on the hillside to eat grass, and make myself fat. " *'I'm coming to gobble you up! " roared the Troll. ''Oh, don't do that! I'm so Httle I'll scarcely make a mouthful. The Middle-sized Billy-Goat Gruff will be along soon. You'd better wait for him. " *' Very well, be off with you! " said the Troll. Presently, along came the second Billy-Goat Gruflt. He went Trip, Trap, Trip, Trap, over the bridge. "WHO'S THAT tripping over my bridge?" roared the Troll. 138 "It's I, the Middle-sized Billy-Goat Gruflf. I'm going up on the hillside to eat grass, and make myself fat. " *' Well, I'm coming to gobble you up !' ' roared the Troll. *' You'd better wait for the Biggest Billy-Goat Gruff. He's far fatter than I." *' Very well, then, be off with you! " said the Troll. After a time, along came the Biggest Billy-Goat Gruff. TRIP, TRAP, TRIP, TRAP he went over the bridge, and it creaked and groaned under his weight. "WHO'S THAT tripping over my bridge?" roared the Troll. "IT'S I, THE BIGGEST BILLY-GOAT GRUFF!" said the billy-goat in a big voice of his own. "Well, I'm coming to gobble you up!" roared the Troll. "HO! HO!" laughed the Biggest Billy-Goat Gruff. "You don't say so! Well, come along! I'l crush you to bits, body and bones!" That's what the Big Billy-Goat said, in his big, rough voice. Up came the Troll, and rushed at the Biggest Billy-Goat, who just lowered his head and tossed the Troll over the bridge, into the stream; and I shouldn't wonder at all if he was crushed to bits, body and bones. Then the Biggest Billy-Goat Gruff went up on the hill- side with the other Billy-Goats Gruff, and they ate grass, and ate grass, until they were so fat that the fat was drop- ping off of them. THE LION AND THE MOUSE This adaptation of an old folk tale effectively combines the interest of the animal-story with the lesson of the power of little things, as heretofore mentioned. STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS 1 39 In the long ago time there was a great, thick forest. In it there lived many animals, and the Lion was the king of them all. One day he was lying under a tree fast asleep. Near him some little field mice were playing about. They were chasing each other and did not see the Lion until one of them ran right over his paw. With a roar the Lion clapped his foot down over the little Mouse and held him fast. "How dare you wake me up?" cried the Lion angrily. "Oh, please, Mr. Lion, I didn't mean to disturb you! Please let me go! If you only will I'll do something for you some day!" When the Lion heard that, he laughed loud and long. "How could a little bit of a Mouse like you do anything for a great big Lion like me? " he said. "I'll let you go this time, but see that you never wake me up again!" So he lifted up his huge paw and the little Mouse scampered away. Not long after this, one day the mice were playing in the forest again. Suddenly they stopped and listened. Great roars were sounding through the forest. "That's my friend Mr. Lion," said the little Mouse, *' I'm sure he's in trouble. I must go and see, " and he ran through the forest until he found the Lion. He was in trouble indeed; he was caught in a net which some hunters had set for him. The thick ropes were wound around him. He pulled this way and that, but for all of his strength he could not break the ropes — they only drew closer and cut deeper. "Wait, I'll help you," said the little Mouse. I40 children's stories and how to tell them ''How can you help me, you foolish little thing?" said the Lion . *' Do you not see that I, the strongest of animals, can do nothing?" The little Mouse did not answer, but ran over to one of the ropes and began to gnaw it with his sharp teeth. He cut the threads as quickly as he could, then went to the next rope. That, too, he gnawed through with his sharp little teeth. Soon he had cut every rope. ''Now, stand up, Mr. Lion," he said. The Lion stood up and shook the pieces of rope from himself. There he was, safe and free again. "Well," he said, "I never thought that a little bit of a Mouse like you could ever do anything for a great big Lion like me, but you've saved my life today!" THE LITTLE HALF-CHICK This old folk tale from the Spanish embodies a delightful com- bination of humor and justice. The picture-quality, the repeti- tion, and added to these the sense of adventure, make it an ideal tale. Children delight in odd phrases such as " hoppity-kick, " and will repeat them in glee, caring nothing for meaning — though " hoppity-kick, " to be sure, has a delightfully picturesque quality of its own. Once upon a time there was a Spanish hen who hatched some little chickens. Among them was a queer little chick. He had only one leg, one wing, one eye, and half a bill — he was a little Half-Chick. Now this little Half-Chick was very naughty and always wanted to have his own way. One day he said to his mother: "I'm going to Madrid to see the King." STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS 141 "Don't do that," said his mother, "it wouldn't be safe at all. " She begged and begged him to give it up, but he said: "Nonsense, I want to go, and I will!" And away he went, hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, as fast as he could go. After he had traveled for quite a while he came to a Brook that was caught in some weeds. It was gurgling and choking, and it called out: "Little Half-Chick, come and help me, please come and help me! " *' I have no time to bother with you, I'm off to Madrid to see the King." And on he went, hoppity-kick, hoppity- kick, leaving the little Brook to choke if it must. Farther on the little Half-Chick came to a Fire which was smothered. It was trying so hard to burn, and when it saw the Uttle Half-Chick, it called out: "Oh, little Half-Chick, come and help me, please come and help me!" The little Half-Chick tipped his little half bill in the air and said: "You are very fooHsh if you think I'll take the time to bother with you. I'm off to Madrid to see the King." And on he went, hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, as fast as he could, leaving the poor Fire to smother. When he had traveled a good way, and was near Madrid, he passed a clump of bushes. In them the Wind was caught fast. It was crying pitifully and begging to be set free. The little Half-Chick pretended not to hear. "Oh, little Half-Chick, little Half-Chick, please come and help me!" the Wind called. "The idea!" said the little Half-Chick. "Why should I bother with you? I'm off to Madrid to see the King. " And on he went, leaving the Wind held fast in the bushes. 142 children's stories and how to tell them At last he came to Madrid, and to the courtyard of the King's palace. The Cook was just leaning out of the kitchen window. When he saw the little Half-Chick, he cried out: "What luck! I was wanting a chicken for the King's supper," and he seized the little Half-Chick and threw him into the pot of water on the fire. The Water came up over the little Half-Chick; it filled his eyes, and choked him. "Oh, Water! Water!" he cried out. " Don't come up so high ! Please don't drown me ! " But the Water said: "Oh, little Half-Chick! Little Half-Chick! You wouldn't help me when I was in trouble, and now I can't help you!" And the Water came up higher and higher. Then the Water began to get very hot, as the Fire crackled and burned underneath the pot. The little Half-Chick danced up and down, and cried out: "Fire! Fire! Please don't burn so hot ! You'll burn me to death ! Oh, stop ! " But the Fire said: " Oh, little Half-Chick ! Little Half- Chick! You wouldn't help me when I was in trouble, and now I can' t help you ! ' ' And the Fire burned hotter than ever. Presently the Cook took the lid off and looked in the pot. "Dear me!" he said, "this chicken is burned black; it's not fit for the King." So he took the little Half-Chick and threw him out of the window. He was caught by the Wind and whirled round. He was bumped and thumped, he was blown this way and that. "Oh, Wind, please don't blow me so hard!" he begged. But the Wind said: "Oh, little Half-Chick! Little Half-Chick! You wouldn't help me when I was in trouble, and now I can't help you!" STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLKS I43 And the Wind blew him harder than ever. It tossed him up above the tree tops, and finally blew him against the church steeple, where he stuck. And there he stands on his little one leg to this day. He turns when the Wind blows, and never gets his own way at all— he has to tell all the people which way the Wind is blowing. CHAPTER XIII FOLK AND FAIRY STORIES The commonest form in which the childish imagination finds exercise is that of fairy-tales; but education must take care that it has these in their proper shape as national productions, and that they are not the morbid kind which artificial poetry so often gives us in this species of literature, and which not seldom degenerate into sentimental caricatures and silliness. — J. K. F. RosENCRANTZ, PMlosophy of Education, The old stories of the race are not fact, but they are truth which the race-mind has visioned and given form in words. They are the product of primitive man's longings and wonderings. They are the answers of his soul in his quest for God. They are his attempts to solve the mystery of his own life, the explanation of his environment. They are the charts which his imagination made, marking the paths by which his spirit might pass to freedom. In them he defied time, conquered space, and transcended all limita- tions. In them, supernatural agencies were his reserve power. In time of stress, the modern man falls back upon his own sub-conscious self; primitive man called upon the Fairies and kindred beings which his own fancy had created to meet his need. Thus all such tales embody the ideals of early man, and through them his growth of spirit may be traced. They have even moulded the religious and social life of the pres- ent time, for the highest and best achievements of today FOLK AND FAIRY STORIES I45 are but the slow fulfillment of man's age-long prophecies and dreams. It is because folk and fairy tales are filled with this spirit of truth that they lay hold upon the heart of child- hood from generation to generation. As we have said in an earher chapter, the child, to some extent, repeats the ex- periences of the race. Light and darkness, wind and sun, sea, sky, and earth surround him. He wonders and dreams about them all. The life within himself calls to the life without and asks Whence? Whither? What? His ques- tionings must find answer on the plane of his own under- standing, so the folk tale with its simplicity and sincerity meets his need. Since belief in the Fairies was a part of primitive man's religion, to feed the child's imagination with the tales which true beHef built concerning these supernatural agencies is to awaken in him a religious attitude. The transition is easily made from interest in these representa- tions of the religion and philosophy of our ancestors to a deepened interest in the power of the unseen forces of nature. This belief in an unseen world leads the child directly into the realm of pure spirit. The attitude of wonder is closely akin to reverence. Fairy tales give the child a sense of well-being. In them good always comes to good; somehow, somewhere, things tend to come out right for the man who chooses wisely and does his best. This attitude of mind is a valuable asset to the child. It adds to his power of endurance and courage, it robs him of fear. Fairy tales people the child's world, and make him less 146 children's stories and how to tell them alone. Fits of intense loneliness frequently sweep over a sensitive child. If he feels the nearness of these unseen friends, his heart is comforted in a way unbelievable to the grown-up who has never known these dream companions. The child who peeps into the cup of every flower for the fairy which may be cradled there will go through life with spirit on tiptoe. Each day will be a new adventure, each road will lead to fortune. As for myths, they especially need adaptation lest younger children gather wrong ethical ideals from the forms in which the myths come to us, from Greece and Rome particularly. Wise choice must be exercised as to what to omit, what to alter and what to relate unchanged. TOM THUMB There are many versions of the story of Tom Thumb, yet few of the present-day books include it. Just why it should be dropped out is hard to understand, for Tom is the ideal hero of the little child. The appeal of the small thing, the call of courage, the adventures which border on the supernatural, make it a fascinating tale for all children. This version is developed from a combination of the favorite versions, Andrew Lang being followed a bit more closely than the others. Long, long ago there lived a wonderful Magician. He was fond of traveling about the world disguised as a beggar, for this helped him to know the hearts of people as he could never have known them if he had come as the power- ful enchanter that he really was. On one of his journeys the Magician stopped at the cot- tage of a poor Plowman. He was so kindly received that FOLK AND FAIRY STORIES 1 47 he began to wonder how he could reward the kindness of the man and his good wife. He looked about the clean, comfortable cottage hoping to see something they really needed. They were poor enough, but their wants were so simple that they seemed to have no needs, in spite of their poverty. At last as he watched the couple he noticed that they both looked quite sad. "What is it you lack for your happiness?" asked the Magician. "Alas," said the Wife, "do you not see how lonely we are without children? I'd be content and happy if we had a son, even if he were no bigger than my goodman's thumb!" The Magician laughed at the idea of any human creature being so small, but the more he thought of it, the more he determined they should have the little son. He went to the Queen of the Fairies and persuaded her to grant the wish. So, not long after, the Plowman's Wife had a son, and not a bit bigger than his father's thumb. One day when his Mother was sitting up admiring the baby, the Queen of the Fairies fiew in at the window. She kissed the child and said: "His name shall be Tom Thumb. " Then she gave him a suit of fairy clothes, said some magic words over him, and flew away. Now though Tom grew very strong and also very clever, he never grew a bit bigger. He played all sorts of cunning tricks on the boys — in fact, on every one, and was afraid of nothing. One day Tom Thumb went with his Mother into the 148 children's stories and how to tell them meadow to milk the Cow. He wore his oak-leaf hat the Queen of the Fairies had given him, and his little jacket of thistle-down. The wind was blowing so hard his Mother feared he would be carried away, so she tied him to a blade of grass, and set to work milking. The Cow saw Tom's oak-leaf hat, and liking the looks of it, took Tom, hat, thistle-down jacket and all in her mouth at one gulp. ** Mother ! Mother ! " he cried as loudly as he could, and danced about to keep out of the way of the Cow's big teeth. "Where are you, my dear?" said his Mother. "Here in the Cow's mouth," he repHed. The poor Mother was beside herself with fright. She ran at the Cow, crying and wringing her hands, while Tom kept dancing about and calling, "Help me. Mother, help me!" The Cow was so surprised that she opened her mouth and dropped Tom Thumb into his Mother's apron. Not long after that, Tom was driving the cattle to pasture when a Raven flying overhead seized him and car- ried him away. The Raven sailed on without stopping until he came to the castle of a Giant. The Giant was standing looking out across the sea, and the Raven dropped Tom at his feet. The Giant picked him up and holding him between his thumb and fingers popped him into his great ugly mouth, and swallowed him. Tom was terribly frightened, but he kept kicking and dancing around at such a rate that the Giant was made so uncomfortable that he was glad to let the little fellow come up again. FOLK AND FAIRY STORIES 1 49 The Giant was very angry that Tom had kicked him so furiously, so he tossed him straight into the sea. A big Fish swimming near instantly swallowed him. Again Tom kicked and danced until the Fish was so uncomfortable he could not tell which way he was swimming and was soon caught in a net. The Fish was carried into the King's kitchen, and when the Cook cut it open, out hopped Tom Thumb ! Every- one was so astonished they could talk of nothing else. The King himself came down to see the little man, and he was so delighted with Tom that he said Tom must stay in the palace. Fine clothes were ordered for him, for those the Fairy Queen had given him were quite spoiled, and he was soon as much at home as he had been in his Mother's kitchen. The little fellow's tricks and his fun made him a favorite at the court. The King often took Tom with him when he went for his rides. Once he even went to sleep in the King's pocket. One day the King asked Tom about his parents, and when he learned that they were very poor, he told Tom to take home some gold to them. So Tom set out at once and traveled two whole days and nights to get there. The good people were overjoyed to see their son again, and were happier still when they saw all the gold he had brought for them. His Mother brought out his walnut- shell bed and Tom crept in it to rest after his long journey. Wlien Tom was ready to go back to the court, there had been a heavy rain and the ground was so wet he could not travel, so his Mother took some paper and made something 150 children's stories and how to tell them like a little parasol. She tied Tom to it, then puffed him into the air. The wind caught him and whirled him along at a great rate all the way to the King's palace. Tom came flying across the courtyard just as the Cook was carrying a bowl of porridge to the King, and the little fellow fell with a splash right in the middle of the bowl. The hot porridge flew up in the Cook's face and frightened him, as well as burning him. The Cook told the King that Tom had jumped into his porridge from pure mischief. This made the King angry and he ordered Tom to be beheaded for treason. So they captured him and shut him up in a mousetrap. But he looked out between the wires and said such funny things to every one who passed that the King could not stay angry with him, so Tom was set free again. Then the King ordered him some new clothes, for of course his old ones were spoiled from the porridge, and gave the small chap a Mouse to ride. He had a tiny sword at his side, and galloped about on his mouse- charger like the knights themselves. One day a Cat made a spring at Tom and his Mouse, but the Httle man drew his sword and rushed at the Cat so fiercely that she was glad enough to let them alone. Tom was wounded in the fight, however, and one of the nobles of the court carried him into the palace and laid him on an ivory bed. Then the Queen of the Fairies flew in at the window and carried Tom off to Fairyland with her. There she cured him, and he lived with the Fairies for many years. He sailed about on butterflies, danced with the fairy ladies, FOLK AND FAIRY STORIES 151 and altogether was as much of a favorite there as he had been at the court of the King. THE THREE HEADS This story has been so adapted as to bring out the reward of lowly service. I have tried to preserve the terse style of the old Norse tale, but there are elements in the original, as re-told by George Webbe Dasent, in "Popular Tales from the Norse, "^ which are too gruesome for children. A child of twelve heard the present version in a settlement house one evening. She had read "Bushy Bride" and demanded that it be told "with the snakes in it. " It was the demand for melodrama and a certain morbid taint against which modern educators are warning us. In the distant days of long ago there was a man who had two children, a son and a daughter. These children were both beautiful and good. They loved each other dearly and were as happy as an April day. After a while the man brought them a step-mother who also had a daughter. This lassie was as cross-grained and disagreeable as the man's two children were kind and loving. She wouldn't do this and she wouldn't do that. She pouted and fussed from one day's end to another. No one loved her, unless of course it was her mother, who thought that whatever her daughter did was right, and blamed the man's children for all that her own cross- patch did that was wrong. There was no more peace or happiness in that household, and as soon as the boy grew big enough he set out into the world to seek his fortune. 1 Used by courteous permission of the publishers, G. Putnam's Sons, New York. 152 children's stories and how to tell them After he had wandered around for a long time he came to the King's palace and got a place to work in the King's stables. He was quick and wilHng, and took such good care of the King's horses that their coats shone when he brought them into the courtyard. And the horses knew and loved him. They whinnied at the sound of his step and when he came near enough they rubbed their noses against his shoulder as if trying to tell him they loved him. He was busy and happy, except for wishing to see his dear sister. She, poor lassie, stayed at home and worked hard from sunrise to sunset, with never a kind word to bless her. But for all that, she never lost her merry ways nor her willingness. One day her step-mother sent her to the brook to f