THE WIDE AWAKE THIRD READER

THE WIDE AWAKE THIRD READER

The Wide Awake Series

• THE WIDE AWAKE PRIMER, 30 cents
• THE WIDE AWAKE FIRST READER, 30 cents
• THE WIDE AWAKE SECOND READER, 35 cents
• THE WIDE AWAKE THIRD READER, 40 cents

THE CHILDREN SCRUB THEIR WOODEN SHOES.
(From “Dutch Children.”)

THE WIDE AWAKE
THIRD READER

BY
CLARA MURRAY
AUTHOR OF “THE WIDE AWAKE PRIMER,” “THE WIDE AWAKE FIRST
READER,” “THE WIDE AWAKE SECOND READER,” ETC.

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1912

Copyright, 1908,
By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
Printers
S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U.S.A.

PREFACE

In this, the third reader of the series, great care has been taken, not only in selecting material suited to the needs and ability of the pupil, but also to arrange the selections so that he may develop the habit of acquiring interesting facts as he reads.

In the first two grades the children need to learn the mechanics of reading,—the recognition of words, the ability to find out new words for themselves by means of phonics, correct pronunciation, enunciation, inflection, expression, etc., but in this grade especial stress may be laid on learning by reading,—getting the fact and remembering it. This prepares the pupil for the actual work of studying, when he is given a book and asked for the first time to “learn the lessons.” The questions at the end of many of the lessons should be read and answered by the pupil after he has read the selection. His answers should be thoughtfully prepared and correctly stated.

Especial attention is called to the fact that the selections in this book are almost exclusively copyrighted material, and have never been and cannot be used in other series of readers. This avoids the tiresome repetition of stories, read first in one book and then again and again in others.

Many of the selections are valuable from a literary standpoint, and the pupils will read with real enjoyment stories by Laura Richards, Mary E. Wilkins, Anna von Rydingsvärd, Helen Hunt Jackson, and other authors, noted for their skill in writing stories for children.

The selections which deal especially with child life and interests in other countries will broaden the child’s view of the world, prepare him for the study of geography, and help him to be a wide awake child, just the child whom this Wide Awake Series is intended to develop.

The selections, “Little Grandmother’s Shoes,” “Children of a Sunny Land,” “The Little Plant,” “The Little Goatherds,” “Great-Great-Grandma’s Christmas in England,” “The Whipping Boy,” “The Christmas Spruce Tree,” “The Eve of St. Nicholas,” “The Little Turkeys,” “The Children of Armenia,” “Ahmow,—the Wolf,” “The Emperor and the Peasant,” and “The Christmas Monks,” are used by arrangement with the Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Company.

CONTENTS

THE WIDE AWAKE THIRD READER

ALL THE CHILDREN OF ALL THE WORLD

I wish you would try to think this morning about all the children in all the world.

There are thousands and thousands of them, and they are doing all sorts of things this very minute.

Some of them are wide awake and some are in bed and fast asleep. Some are in school and some are playing out of doors.

Some live in such hot countries that they lie in the shade of big palm trees to keep cool. Others are in such a cold country that they see nothing but ice and snow, and they are dressed in furs from head to foot.

When you read stories about the children in other lands, do they seem to you like fairy stories?

I want you to know that all these children are real boys and girls, and they work and play and have happy times together, just as you do.

Perhaps when you read about the children in the far North you will wish that you were an Eskimo boy, living in a snow hut, wearing thick furs, and riding over the fields of snow in a sled drawn by dogs.

Or perhaps you would rather be a little Indian and live in a wigwam in the forest, learning to paddle a canoe, and to fish and hunt.

While you are here in this beautiful schoolroom, learning to read and write and draw and sing, there are thousands of other children who never saw a schoolhouse, and who will grow up to be men and women without even learning to read.

You can read stories about these people, and as you grow older perhaps you will know more about them, but they will probably never hear of you.

Of course, there are many thousands of children everywhere who are in school this morning.

Think of all the boys and girls in every town in the whole United States, who see the flag with its stars and stripes floating over their schoolhouses, and who learn to sing “America.”

In France the children wave a flag of red, white and blue, and learn a song about their country, but their flag is not like yours, and you could not understand one word of their French song.

The little English children sing a song about their country and their king which you could understand, and they read in books like yours. But then, there are the children who live in Germany, and learn to read in German, and the children who live in Italy and read Italian books, and many, many others.

Oh, there are so many children in the world!

In Japan and China the children use the queerest books that you ever saw. The words go up and down the page, and the stories begin at the end of the book, and at the bottom of the page. The words look like this:—

Did you ever see such funny words?

The boys and girls in these other countries do not go to school all of the time. They have holidays and vacations, and they play out of doors in the long summer days and the cold winter weather, just as you do.

You would enjoy playing with these children, even if you could not talk with them. I know you would like to fly big kites with the boys in Japan, or skate down the canals with the little Dutch boys.

And as for dolls! I am sure there are as many dolls in the world as there are little girls, and perhaps more, because some little girls have so many dolls that they cannot play with all of them.

You would like to play with the queer Chinese dolls in their beautiful silken robes, or with the Eskimo dolls that are carved out of bone and are dressed in furs and sealskin.

The Indian girl has wooden dolls dressed in bright blankets, with beads and feathers. The little French girl has a big wax doll, with blue eyes that shut when she lies down, and pop open when she sits up again. She wears beautiful gowns and big hats with feathers and ribbons.

Wouldn’t it be fun to have a dolls’ party to-day, if the dolls from all over the world could come?

These dolls might be dressed in furs, or silks, or blankets; they might be made of wax, or bone, or wood. But if they could talk they would tell you that the little girl who owns them loves them, and that, whether she lives in a snow hut or a tent in the desert, she has a loving father and mother and a happy childhood.

Are there many children in all the world?

What are some of them doing this very minute?

If you should go to school in Germany, what would you have to do first?

What does a little German child have to do when he first goes to school in our country?

Tell all the things you can that all the children in the world do almost every day.

THE SONG SPARROW’S WORK

In the forest where the birds live there is always work to do.

The woodpecker is a carpenter. He climbs up and down the trees and chops a hole in the trunk of one of them to make his home.

The crow flies down to the ground, and walks about in the fields.

He is the birds’ farmer. Toward evening, when he cries, “Caw! Caw!” he means that the earth needs rain.

The owl is the night policeman. He watches the rats and mice, and keeps them out of the farmer’s fields.

The kingbirds are the soldiers. They fight the birds that come over from the next forest, and drive them away.

The hawks have sharp eyes, and can see a long way. They are the scouts, and tell the soldiers when the enemy is coming.

The whip-poor-wills can see in the night, so they are the birds’ night watchmen.

The orioles are weavers. They weave their nests, and hang them in the tallest trees.

One of the birds is a thief, and steals eggs from the nests of the other birds, but I shall not tell you his name.

So all of the birds have work to do in the forest.

What do the song birds do? Ah! they have their work, too. They sing cheerfully while the other birds work, and make the hours short and the day happy.

They sing of the goodness of God, and of the beauty in the forest and sky.

If there were no song birds, the workers might forget all of these lovely things. Then their hearts would be as hard as the tree the woodpecker is chopping.

One spring morning the song birds were singing so beautifully that every one listened.

The woodpeckers cried, “Plitt! plitt!” The crows screamed, “Rah! rah!” and the blackbirds laughed with glee. This meant that they liked the songs.

In the nests were many baby birds. They liked to hear the songs, too, so they stretched up their little heads.

But they could not understand the songs about the sky and the forest. You see, they had not seen these things yet, and they did not know what the songs meant.

The poor babies drooped their heads and were very sad.

There was one bird who thought of the babies in the nests, for he had a kind heart, and loved little things.

“I will fly down and sing for them,” he thought; “perhaps it will make them happy.”

So he flew into a little bush, quite near the ground, and sang the sweetest song he knew. Over and over again he sang it, and the babies in the nests listened all the time.

“He is singing about the warm sunshine,” said the baby robins.

“He is singing about rocking in this beautiful cradle,” said the baby orioles.

Then, as the song grew sweeter and sweeter, “Listen, listen!” they cried. “Now he is singing about our mother. That is the best song of all.”

So the song sparrow sang in the little bush, telling the babies about the sun and the breezes and their mothers’ love.

He waked them in the morning; he sang them to sleep at night.

Have you never heard him singing, “Sweet, sweet, sweet, loving little mother, sweet”?

—Etta Austin Blaisdell.

DUTCH CHILDREN

How would you like to go to Holland with me to visit the little Dutch children?

First we must go to New York City in a railroad train and then get on board of one of the big ships that cross the ocean.

We shall have to travel over the water five or six days and nights in this big ship, and then ride a long way, after we come to land.

When the Pilgrims came to this country, nearly three hundred years ago, they crossed the same ocean, but it took them many weeks. They were in a small sailing vessel, and had to come very slowly.

On board of this big ship you will find a great many things to do and see. There are several hundred people on the vessel, and it is interesting to watch them. There are books to read, and games to play, and the days will go very swiftly.

Most of the time you will not be able to see land in any direction. All you can see is the sun and the sky and the ocean with big waves rolling and tossing about.

I wonder what you will notice the very first thing when you reach Holland.

Perhaps you will see a group of children running down the street with their wooden shoes clacking on the stone walks.

Or perhaps you will see some girls standing at a corner knitting stockings, or a boy driving a dog harnessed to a little cart.

If you take a train and ride through the country you will see many strange things.

There are big windmills everywhere, with long arms, and sails to catch the wind. These mills turn wheels to pump water and grind corn and saw wood. In Holland there are no rivers with falls and swift currents to turn the mill wheels.

In some towns there are canals instead of streets, with bridges for the people to cross from one side to the other.

In summer there are many boats going up and down the canals, but in winter the water in the canals freezes, and then everybody skates. Think what fun it must be to skate to church, to skate to market, to skate to school, and then skate home again!

A great many of the poor children in Holland wear wooden shoes when they are out of doors. When they go into the house they take off their shoes and leave them at the door. You can tell, by counting the pairs of shoes at the door, how many children there are in the house.

Every week the children scrub their wooden shoes with soap and water until they are almost as white as snow; then they dry them in the sun, or before the fire in the big open fireplace.

These wooden shoes make fine boats, and sometimes the boys take them off and sail them in the canals. The little girls use them for doll carriages, or play they are beds, and tuck their dolls into them for a nap.

If you were walking down a village street in Holland you might see a red silk ball, or a pink silk one, hanging at the front door of one of the houses. This is to show that there is a little new baby in the house. If the ball is red, the baby is a boy; if it is pink, the baby is a girl.

There are very good schools in Holland, and all the children go to school and learn to read and write and sing, just as you do. But their reading and singing would sound very strange to you, and you could not read one word of their writing.

The Dutch children have vacations and holidays, of course. The holiday they like best of all is Santa Claus Day. It comes on the sixth day of December, and is very much like our Christmas Day.

The boys and girls put their wooden shoes in front of the fireplace, on the hearth, just as you hang your stocking near the chimney, and Santa Claus rides over the roofs of the houses on a big horse and drops presents down the chimney into the little shoes.

How would you go from your home to New York City? How long would it take?

What would you like to see in Holland?

What would you see that you never saw before?

Why do the people in Holland build windmills?

What kind of shoes do many of the children wear?

What season would you like best if you were in Holland? Why?

A LITTLE DUTCH GIRL

Were you a little Dutch girl

You’d be, perhaps, as sweet

As now you are, my darling,

And very much more neat!

You’d be a little housewife,

And even at your play

You’d take your knitting needles,

And knit and knit away!

You’d never be forgetting

To feed your pussy-cat,

And she, like Holland pussies,

Would grow so sleek and fat.

But were you, dear, a Gretchen,

You’d live across the sea,

And so would be, my dearie,

No kind of use to me.

—Edith Colby Banfield.

THE GREAT FEAST

Once the Play Angel came into a nursery where four little children sat on the floor with sad and troubled faces.

“What is the matter, children?” asked the Play Angel.

“We wanted to have a great feast,” said the child whose nursery it was.

“Yes, that would be delightful,” said the Play Angel.

“But there is only one cooky!” said the child whose nursery it was.

“And it is a very small cooky!” said his little cousin.

“Not big enough for me!” said the child whose nursery it was.

The other two children said nothing, but they looked at the cooky with big round eyes, and their mouths went up in the middle and down at the sides.

“Well,” said the Play Angel, “let us have the feast just the same. I think we can manage it.”

She broke the cooky into four pieces, and gave one piece to the littlest child.

“See,” she said. “This is a roast chicken. It is just as brown and crisp as it can be. There is cranberry sauce on one side, and on the other a little mountain of mashed potato. It must be a volcano, it smokes so. Do you see?”

“Yes,” said the littlest child, and his mouth went down in the middle and up at the corners.

The Play Angel gave a piece to the next child.

“Here,” she said, “is a little pie. Outside, as you see, it is brown and crusty, and inside it is all chicken, and ham, and jelly, and hard-boiled eggs. Did you ever see such a pie?”

“No, I never did,” said the child.

“Now here,” said the Angel to the third child, “is a round cake. The frosting is half an inch thick, and inside there are chopped nuts and raisins. It is the prettiest cake I ever saw, and the best.”

“So it is,” said the third child.

Then the Angel gave the last piece to the child whose nursery it was.

“My dear,” she said, “just look! Here is an ice-cream rabbit. He is snowy white outside, with eyes of red sugar; see his long ears, and his little tail. Inside, I think you will find he is pink.

“Now, when I clap my hands and count one, two, three, you must eat the feast all up. One—two,—three!”

So the children ate the feast all up.

“There,” said the Angel, “did you ever see such a grand feast?”

“No, we never did!” said all the four children together.

“And there are some crumbs left over,” said the Angel. “Come, and we will give them to the brother birds.”

“But you didn’t have any,” said the child whose nursery it was.

“Oh, yes!” said the Angel, “I had it all.”

—Laura E. Richards.

Small service is true service while it lasts.

Of humblest friends, bright creature, scorn not one.

The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,

Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.

—William Wordsworth.

LITTLE GRANDMOTHER’S SHOES

“But, Grandmother,” said little May, holding up the tiny pair of calf-skin shoes, “were these your very best shoes? Didn’t you have any shiny black ones, with a tassel on, like mine?

“And where did you buy them, Grandmother? Did Columbus bring them with him in his ship?”

“No, dear; Columbus didn’t bring Grandma’s shoes in his ship. He sailed back to Spain again three hundred years before these shoes were made.

“Bring your chair and sit down by me. I will tell you all about these little worn-out shoes of mine.

“When I was a little girl,” began Grandmother, “children did not wear shoes all the time. They went barefoot in the summer, except when they were dressed up. One pair of shoes had to last a whole year.

“When we went to church we used to go barefoot, carrying our shoes in our hands. At the foot of the hill we washed our feet in the brook and put on our shoes and stockings.

“Our shoes did not wear out very fast; and if we lost a shoe, we had to go barefoot till the shoemaker came again.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed May, “how dreadful! Who was the shoemaker, Grandmother, and when did he come?”

“The shoemaker,” Grandmother replied, “was a very important man when I was a little girl. ‘Shoe week’ was a busy week in the family.

“I can remember how glad we all were when father said, ‘The shoemaker will be here to-morrow.’

“That night the shoe bench was brought down from the attic and placed in a warm corner of the kitchen.

“Father and mother made a list of the shoes that were needed. We children talked about our new shoes and the shoemaker until we fell asleep.

“Early in the morning the shoemaker appeared. He carried his bag of tools and a roll of leather on his back. By seven o’clock he was seated at his bench, hard at work.

“We children used to sit on the floor beside him and watch him work. First he measured our feet and drew some paper patterns. Then he cut out the leather.

“He punched holes along the edges of the leather with a sharp awl; then the shoe was ready to sew.

“For his sewing he used a long waxed thread, with a stiff bristle at each end for a needle. All day long he would sit at his bench, putting the needles into the holes and pulling the thread through, till the shoe was sewed firmly.

“When all our shoes were made, he packed his bag and said good-by for another year.”

LITTLE-FOLK LAND

The children all go looking

In vain for Fairyland,

Where little folk have dwelling,

And wander hand in hand;

Where silvery small voices

Ring clear upon the air,

Where magic little whispers

Work wonders everywhere;

Where flower fields are forests,

For tiny feet to tread;

Where one has lived a life-time

Before the day is fled.

For this dear wondrous country

The children look in vain;

They find but empty flowers,

Through sun and summer rain.

It is the grown folks only

Have eyes for Fairyland,

Where little people wander,

And toddle hand in hand;

Where happy voices prattle,

And whisper secrets strange;

Where tiny sprites by magic

To bigger fairies change;

Where dancing little figures

Get lost amid the flowers;

Where days as years are measured,

And minutes count for hours.

It is the grown folk only

Can find the land of elves;

How could the children guess it?

The fairies are themselves.

—Edith Colby Banfield.

CHILDREN OF A SUNNY LAND

I—A STRANGE MILK WAGON

Domingo and his sister Marikena live in a warm, sunny land. It is the land of Brazil, where there are fruits and flowers all the year, and it is always summer.

Domingo and Marikena love the sunshine, and the birds and flowers.

They like to play out of doors in the early morning and at night, but at noon it is too hot, and every one takes a nap.

When they go to the woods they do not see crows and blue jays and woodpeckers. Instead, there are gorgeous parrots and beautiful humming-birds that are almost as large as robins.

Perhaps they see monkeys in the palm trees; and, instead of acorns, they find cocoanuts.

In their schoolroom they sing all their lessons. Is not that a merry way? But it would seem strange to you because you could not understand one word they say. You see, they do not speak English, and they could not talk with you.

Every morning the two children are up very early and out on the balcony watching for something. Soon they call out, “leite, leite,” which means, “milk, milk.”

And what do you suppose they see? Not a wagon filled with glass jars or tin cans. Oh, no! It is only two or three cows being driven down the street by a woman.

The woman stops the cows in front of Domingo’s house, and milks one of them while the children watch her. How sweet and fresh this milk is! I wish you could have some every morning, too!

II—A RIDE IN A CHAIR

Domingo and Marikena are going with their mother to visit their cousin.

They have had their afternoon nap and it is not too hot out of doors now, as it is nearly four o’clock.

If you were going to pay a visit you would walk or ride in a car or carriage, would you not?

But Domingo and Marikena are not going in either of those ways. It is too hot to walk, and the streetcars do not go up the hill where their aunt lives, so they will ride in a chair.

The chairs are large and have big, soft cushions. They have a cover overhead and curtains on all sides, and are carried by four men.

The two children ride in one chair; their mother in another. The curtains are drawn down, but Domingo peeps out as they ride through the city streets.

When they reach the cousin’s house they do not rap on the door or ring a bell. The mother claps her hands, and when the aunt sees them she says, “Enter and welcome. The house and all it contains is yours.”

Is not that a strange way of saying, “I am glad to see you. Will you come in?”

They sit in the parlor and while they talk they sip coffee from tiny cups. Before they come away they walk in the garden, where there are beautiful flowers and fountains, tall palm trees, and rubber trees with blossoms like yellow lilies.

The chair-men wait and the children ride home again, but it is dark, and they can see only the lights in the houses. The chair swings back and forth like a cradle as the men trot down the hill into the city.

They sing as they go, and the song is a low, sweet tune like a lullaby. Marikena puts her head on the cushions and almost falls asleep.

Domingo nods and dreams of the fruit and the flowers and the funny pet monkey his cousin had in the garden. Oh! the days are long and happy in Brazil, and the children have merry times.

III—THE CARNIVAL

“The Carnival, the Carnival,” shouted Domingo one morning. “This is the first day of the Carnival.”

Then he ran to find Marikena. “Look, Sister,” he cried, “I am a clown this year. What are you?”

“I am a fairy,” she replied. “See my cap and wand. And here is a bag full of sugarplums and sweetmeats. I can hang the bag over my shoulder.”

“See these big pockets,” said her brother. “They are bigger than a bag and they are just full of goodies. I like to be a clown, because I can have such big pockets. Take that!” and he threw a handful of sugarplums into her lap.

Just then there was a clapping of hands at the door and the children ran to the balcony.

In Brazil the Carnival is held on the three days before Lent, and every one has a holiday. The cities are beautifully decorated, and men, women and children wear odd costumes and masks.

Some of them are dressed to look like monkeys, some like parrots, and some like clowns. Some wear gay dresses and funny masks, and others wear ugly skins of animals and hideous masks.

The children often carry wreaths and garlands of flowers; and there is always music and feasting and dancing in the streets.