I

CLASSIC TALES

After our boys and girls have read the first half of this volume, containing selected and simplified stories from some of the greatest books of all time, their authors will cease to be merely names. Homer, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Cervantes and Bunyan will be found here as familiar and easy in style as “Cinderella” or “The Three Bears.” True enough, the first word in “Classic Tales” may look somewhat alarming to the eyes of youthful seekers after romance and adventure, but we challenge them to turn to any one of these selections from immortal masterpieces and not become spellbound and, moreover, impatient for more. And, believing now that they have grown very much interested in these famous books, of course we also believe they want to learn something about them.

Following the order of our stories we must begin with “Don Quixote.” Its author wrote it under great difficulties and distress; but one would never think so, as it is full of laughable doings. When you read our selections you must not think that Don Quixote was merely a silly old man, for indeed he was a very noble gentleman and tried with all his might to do what he believed to be his duty, and in no act of his life was there ever a stain of dishonor or of meanness. As for his queer fancies, you will find in your own experience that many things are not as they seem.

Next comes one of Gulliver’s voyages. Under all this account of a tiny race of people there is fun poked at government and its ministers. But we do not concern ourselves with such matters all we think about is the wonderful deeds of Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. Do not think such people are impossible, for did not Stanley, the explorer, find in Africa a race of dwarfs so little that he called them pygmies? And perhaps when some of our young readers grow up, they, too, may discover small folks in the world.

In regard to the “Arabian Nights,” from which we give you three choice stories, you ought to know the way they came to be told. Once upon a time, a Sultan of Arabia thought that all women were of not much use, so every day he married a new wife, and before twenty-four hours were over he ordered that she have her head cut off. One brave woman thought of a clever plan by which she could end this cruelty. She went to the palace and offered to marry the Sultan, and that night she began to tell him such fascinating stories that when morning came he still wished to hear more. He commanded that she should not be beheaded until all her stories were told. Then for a thousand and one nights, night after night, she gave him fresh stories, and by the end of that time the Sultan had fallen very much in love with her. Naturally, they lived happily forever after. Perhaps these three stories which we have selected will compel you to seek out all the rest, and if you do, we are quite sure you will not wonder that the brave lady won the heart of the wicked Sultan and made him good.

From the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” of Homer, we have given you some soul-stirring happenings. Several thousand years ago these stories were sung by a blind minstrel named Homer. Some day you may read Homer’s sublime poetry in the original Greek, and the selections which we give you will help you to remember the stories when you are struggling with that difficult language.

Parts of the old favorite “Robinson Crusoe” follow the Grecian tales, and we trust its simple language will make the little ones love it more than ever. You will remember that Defoe wrote this nearly two hundred years ago. Everybody liked long stories in those days, but we have all heard children of to-day ask when a somewhat lengthy book would end, no matter how interesting, and many grown-ups are guilty of reading the close of a story before they have gone very far in it. So with that in mind we have put down in brief form most of Robinson Crusoe’s important adventures during his twenty-eight years on the desert island.

Here we also give three splendid stories from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” which were supposedly told to one another by a party of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. According to our gentle author, who was one of them, they stopped over night at a house in England called the Tabard Inn, and here they passed the hours repeating fine stories. Afterward Chaucer wrote these down in a book in quaint old English. One might look at these words all day long and not know in the least what what some of them meant, though they do hold such beautiful tales.

Now about “Pilgrim’s Progress.” More than two hundred years ago a tinker named John Bunyan was in jail, but one night this poor man left his prison and wandered into the land of dreams. There he saw wonderful sights and heard marvelous things, and as there was no one to listen to his dream, John Bunyan wrote it down, and had it made into a book. And this he called “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” It was about the journey and adventures of a pilgrim and his companions. In our version we have given most of the dream, but when the boys and girls grow older they will want to read it all in Bunyan’s own language, and we hope this account will lead them to do so.

Shakespeare is a magic name to grown-ups, but to children it does not mean much. All they know is, that sometimes this name is spelled on the back of one fat volume, sometimes on three, sometimes on a dozen or more, but of the inside they know almost nothing, and when they hear persons say that Shakespeare is the greatest writer that ever lived, they wonder about it. If they take down a volume containing one of his plays, they think it very dull, but here in simple language we present the stories of two of the most fairy-like and beautiful plays, as retold for children by Charles and Mary Lamb.

Daniel Edwin Wheeler.

II

OLD-FASHIONED STORIES

There is much truth in the saying that “old things are best, old books are best, old friends are best.” We like to connect in thought our best-loved books and our best-loved friends. A good friend must have some of the wisdom of a good book, though good books often talk to us with wisdom and also with humor and courtesy greater than any living friend may show. “Sometimes we think books are the best friends; they never interrupt or contradict or criticise us.”

Every year in our own country about ten thousand books are published. Most of them die in early life. Three hundred years from now every one of this year’s ten thousand books will be dead and forgotten, except possibly thirty or forty. The very best books do not die young. The books written about three hundred years ago that are read to-day like Shakespeare’s plays are as a rule the books that deserve to live forever. And, “Gentle Reader,” if you are wise you will see why the old books are best: they are the wheat, and the winds of time have blown only the chaff away.

Is it not strange that in the olden times so few poems or books or stories were written for children? The “Iliad,” the stories of King Arthur, the “Canterbury Tales,” and “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Robinson Crusoe,” were written for men and women.

But happily this is the children’s age, and now nearly half of all the books written are written for children. You must remember, however, that all boys and girls are children in the eyes of the law till they are twenty-one years old.

We know a little boy who read last week a very modern story. The book was bound in red cloth. It had a gilt top and very modern pictures drawn by a great artist and printed in three or four colors. How different from the books of one hundred years ago, with their black covers and queer pictures!

This story read by the little New York boy last week has been read by many little boys in Iowa, and by many little girls in Georgia. It tells about an orphan boy who was “bound out” to a farmer who treated him cruelly. He ran away to the Rocky Mountain region, where he had many adventures with robbers and Indians and blizzards. He was strong and heroic; he could shoot straight and ride the swiftest horses, and nothing ever hurt him very much.

This, as I have said, is a modern story. It does not tell the reader to be truthful and good. It just tells him a story of thrilling adventures and daring escapes from danger. But the old-fashioned story is different; and now we are getting close to our subject.

I will tell you all about the old-fashioned stories in a moment; but I must remind you that these old stories were written about a hundred years ago. They were usually written to teach a moral lesson. Dear old John Aikin, or his sister Anna Letitia Barbauld, or Maria Edgeworth, or Jane Taylor would say some morning at any rate, so it seems to me “I will write a story to-day to teach boys and girls to be industrious.” And so “Busy Idleness” was written. Or one of these old authors would decide to write a story the main object of which was to teach little girls not to be too curious, and so “The Inquisitive Girl” was written. Both of these stories, and many others equally good, are found in this volume.

I could really tell you many interesting things about these old-fashioned stories but I will do something better urge you to read them yourself. They are quaint, delightful, and entertaining stories, besides teaching a moral. You boys and girls should read every one of them, and then read them again, out loud, to your mothers or to anybody else who will listen.

Among all the old-fashioned stories in this volume I find only one that seems to me “really funny,” and that is “Uncle David’s Nonsensical Story about the Giants and Fairies.” Think of a giant so tall that “he was obliged to climb up a ladder to comb his own hair.” But this bit of humor is not so good as a very modern nonsense-story entitled “The Giant’s Shoes,” which I read the other day, and from which the Managing Editor permits me to quote this little passage:

“The Giant slept for three weeks at a time, and two days after he woke his breakfast was brought to him, consisting of bright brown horses sprinkled on his bread and butter. Besides his boots, the Giant had a pair of shoes, and in one of them his wife lived when she was at home; on other occasions she lived in the other shoe. She was a sensible, practical kind of woman, with two wooden legs and a clothes-horse, but in other respects not rich. The wooden legs were kept pointed at both ends, in order that if the Giant were dissatisfied with his breakfast, he might pick up any stray people that were within reach, using his wife as a fork; this annoyed the inhabitants of the district, so that they built their church in a southwesterly direction from the castle, behind the Giant’s back, that he might not be able to pick them up as they went in. But those who stayed outside to play pitch-and-toss were exposed to great danger and sufferings.”

G.J.B.