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For the Children's Hour |
by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey |
A choice collection of stories for the preschool child, carefully selected, adapted, and arranged by two veteran kindergarten teachers. Includes nature stories, holiday stories, fairy tales and fables, as well as stories of home life. Emphasis is placed on fanciful tales for their value in the training of the imagination and on cumulative tales for developing a child's sense of humor and appealing to his instinctive love of rhyme and jingle. Ages 4-7 | 464 pages |
$15.95 |
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STUART'S VALENTINE
James E. Tower, in "Good Housekeeping."
[255] STUART was very happy when he went to bed the night
before St. Valentine's Day, because his mamma said she
felt sure he would find a pretty valentine in the
morning, which would be all his own. So he dreamed a
beautiful dream about a valentine that was red and
yellow and blue, with pink roses and blue kittens upon
it.
But when Stuart came downstairs in the morning he could
not find mamma or papa, and he could not find any
valentine at all. He felt very badly, for mamma always
told him what was true; he thought somebody else must
have got his beautiful valentine, so he went out to the
kitchen and he said: "Mary, where is my valentine?"
Mary did not say anything, but she gave Stuart—what do
you think?—a large brown cookie with raisins in it!
Stuart bit a piece out of the cookie, and it tasted
good, but he thought that was not a valentine, and so
he went outdoors to eat it. There was the tall, red
rooster pecking in the grass where the snow had melted
away.
"Good morning, Mr. Rooster," said Stuart, "see my
valentine."
[256] The rooster looked at the cookie with his sharp
eyes and then he walked up and took a bite out of it.
"That is my valentine," said the rooster. "You must
ask the chickadee to give you another one; she ran off
with my breakfast." And with that the rooster snatched
the cookie out of Stuart's hand and ran off with it as
fast as he could go. Stuart saw a pretty little brown
bird perched on an evergreen bough singing "chickadee,
chickadee," so he went up to the tree and said:
"Good morning, Miss Chickadee. Please give me a
valentine. The rooster ran off with mine."
"I cannot give you a valentine," said the chickadee.
"I have promised to be the pretty pussy-cat's
valentine, but I don't know what a valentine is. You
go and ask the pussy-cat."
"Please give me a valentine, Mr. Pussy-cat," said
Stuart, walking up to the pussy, who was lying on the
doorstep in the sunshine.
"I haven't got my own valentine yet," said the
pussy-cat; "you go and ask the cow. I just heard her
mooing in the barn."
"Moo-oo-oo," said Mrs. Cow, and she looked over toward
the door and shook her horns.
"Aha! I believe the old white horse is the one who has
my valentine," said Stuart, looking at the horse, who
was chewing and chewing in his stall. The horse
laughed out loud.
"Nay, nay," he said to Stuart. "You go out in the yard
and see if the dog Rover is not bringing your valentine
this very minute."
So Stuart ran out, and, sure enough, there was the
wagon coming from the postoffice, and Rover was
running on ahead with something in his mouth. It was
[257] a big envelope with Stuart's name on the outside,
and in the envelope was a beautiful valentine!
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