Laura Rountree Smith

“ But I do not hang up my stocking, no! no!”
“All right,” said Santa Claus, “I must be going. If you change your mind about the stocking, it will be all right.”
Then Santa Claus put on his great fur cap and his great fur coat, and the little dwarf stood before him and he stamped his foot and cried,
[46]
“I never hung up my stocking at all,
I never believed old Santa would call.”
The little dwarf ran out into his barn and got a great armful of hay. It was all he could do to carry such an armful. He fed Santa’s reindeer. ”

“ Can an ugly dwarf make tea to drink?”
Then the little dwarf was gone for a long time and Santa Claus almost fell asleep. He shook himself to keep awake.
He said, “I must not go to sleep to-night of all nights in the year!” ”

“ He took hold of the string and the kite began to pull.
“Hold on tight!” shouted the little dwarf. “Hold on tight!”
Then the little boy went up, up, up, over the tree-tops, and over the houses until he came to [83] the stars! My, but he was away up high in the sky!
“The little boy went up, up, up, until he came to the stars”
The stars were so bright he winked and blinked his eyes, and suddenly he forgot to keep hold of the string, and down, down, down he fell to earth again, and his kite flew away and he never saw it again! ”

“ Suddenly Molly stopped spinning and Polly stopped spinning and then all the Babies stopped spinning, and they ran to the place where the chair and spoon and pitcher were.
They cried out, “Oh, the magic chair and spoon and pitcher!”
Then the magic chair said, “All jump in and have a ride.”
And the magic spoon said, “I will show you how to spin.”
Then the magic pitcher said, “I will give you a drink of cider.”
They all made merry, you may believe.
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“Found the princess sitting alone by her spinning wheel”
In a short time the magic spoon had all the flax spun into thread ”

“ Every time he poured from the magic pitcher, out came something delicious to drink.
The little dwarf grew so happy and healthy that when he went into the woods to chop down trees he could chop six trees while the other little dwarfs could only chop down one. ”

“ We all came out of a bottle of ink!
The Ink-Bottle Babies in every clime,
Cry, ‘Hurrah! hurrah! for vacation time!’”
Fairy Tales of Long Ago
By Julia Darrow Cowles
Price, 60 Cents a Copy, Postpaid
Train a child’s imagination by feeding it with the fancies of great story-tellers, is a truism familiar to all teachers. There is nothing like the old fairy tales for nourishing young imaginations. This group of tales Mrs. Cowles has gathered from many sources and retold in charming fashion. That they have gained, rather than lost, by the retelling, will soon become apparent to teachers ”

“ Along with the breezes will fly, and fly.”
Just then a voice said,
“Perhaps you can fly,
If you only try!”
The little boy looked around, and there sat the funniest little dwarf. The dwarf sat cross-legged on an old tree-stump.
“Ever think much about flying?” he said, and he screwed his face up into a thousand wrinkles. ”

“ Then Brownie tied Goldy into a chair and she went out of the house and locked the door.
Brownie said, “I will have my fortune told first.”
She went into the valley where an old Gypsy lived. She knocked at the door and the Gypsy called out,
“Cross-Patch, pull the latch,
Sit by the fire and spin;
Cross-Patch, pull the latch,
Open the door, come in.”
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“She stamped her foot”
Brownie was a little afraid to pull the latch at first, but as the Gypsy did not speak again she knew she must do something, so she pulled the latch. ”

“ March like soldiers in a row!”
Then the Ink-Bottle Babies got into two rows and they followed the Ink-Bottle Papa over to the meadow.
Then they began to run and fly their kites.
“Oh, oh, oh,” cried Polly, “my kite pulls so hard!”
“Oh, oh, oh,” cried Molly, “I am afraid my kite will get away.” ”

“ The Gypsy forgot one thing. She forgot to take away Brownie’s voice, so she could talk as well as ever.
Brownie went crawling slowly home. She called out to Goldy,
“Go to the Gypsy, whatever you do,
A very fine fortune waits there for you!”
She really hoped that the Gypsy would turn her sister into a caterpillar, too!
Then Brownie sighed, for she remembered that she had tied Goldy into her chair, and that she could not get away if she wanted to.
Pretty soon a prince came by and Brownie cried,
“The beautiful princess sits in a chair ”

“ They take care of the babies of the Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe. They help the Crooked Man build himself a new chimney. Dr. Foster takes them walking in the woods and teaches them things about insects and spiders which every child is simply aching to know. ”

“ It appears that the Mother Goose children are a healthy, fun-loving, workaday lot of youngsters, exactly like the boys and girls who read about them. They attend Dame Trot’s school. They give tea parties and Valentine parties. ”

“ And they delight in the description of the big circus parade, and in the colored frontispiece and end sheets, to say nothing of the many fascinating black and white illustrations.
128 pages. Cloth, 60 cents
A. FLANAGAN COMPANY
CHICAGO
JUST STORIES
BY
ANNIE KLINGENSMITH
Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Gary, Indiana
AUTHOR OF
“Household Stories” and “Norse Gods and Heroes”
In “Just Stories” Miss Klingensmith has selected and adapted from the best in children’s literature more than thirty of the stories she considers especially needed in work with children in the third and fourth grades. ”