Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) Fun and Thought for Little Folk

Little Boy Blue, in all his blue clothes, visits Aunt Polly’s high-hill farm, rising at the cuckoo’s call, breakfasting on creamy milk and johnny-cake, and tending the cows and sheep with his little blue horn and the dog Towzer at his side. One hot day, drowsy from his early rising, he falls asleep beneath a haycock and dreams of the woolly white lamb, only to be discovered by Aunt Polly, who lets him lie because, as everyone knows, “if we should wake him, he’d cry, cry, cry.” Afterward he naps first and never fails again—earning the lamb as his parting gift.

A sly fox then works a cunning trade along the village street, leaving a bag with each old mother and warning her not to untie the string. Each curious woman peeks, and each peek costs her more: the bumblebee is eaten by the rooster, the rooster by the pig, the pig by the ox, and the ox is chased into the woods by a little boy. The fox at last bags a child, but the busy baker-mother, distracted by cake, hears his cry, frees him, and substitutes the house dog. When the fox opens the bag in the woods, the dog leaps out and finishes him for good.

By the wild Norwegian cliff, a small boy named Oeyvind loses his beloved goat to a bold little girl called Marit, who tempts him with a butter-cake. He eats it all, realizes his folly too late, and weeps—but Marit returns the goat with a garter left behind, and at the school-house they sit side by side on painted tubs, peeping at one another beneath their elbows, as the old schoolmaster rumbles his prayers and the children roar their lessons like a mill.

The chapter closes gently in a sunlit garden, where four children making mud-pies are summoned by old Mrs. Tomkins the cat, who leads them to the barn. There, sitting upon her kittens with wings spread protectively, is the hen, and a laughing Mollie declares she shall ask Mama to write a story about the hen that “dopted” them.

VIII

The trouble with Mrs. Tomkins, the old cat, was her meddlesome neighbor—a hen who insisted on adopting every kitten the moment their mother left the nest. No matter how sharply Mrs. Tomkins cried “M-i-e-o-u!” to warn her children away, the hen would waddle over, tuck the kittens beneath her wings, and peck them sharply when they poked their heads out. At last, in dignified fury, Mrs. Tomkins gathered all five kittens in her mouth, one by one, and carried them into the library, where she deposited them at the children’s mother’s feet with a pleading purr. A cozy box in the woodhouse became their new home.

Then comes Dot’s Birthday Cake, where a five-year-old girl watches her mama cut a great round cake bearing five pink candles. Dot asks permission for each member of her court—her big doll Marie, her Teddy Bear Fuzzy, her papa, and finally her mama herself—and the cake lasts five whole days before it is gone. In Ned and Rover and Jack, a boy’s puppy tumbles from a shiny wagon when his master runs off to greet a friend. The puppy grows too large for riding, so Ned’s little brother Jack harnesses him to a smaller wagon. When a rabbit darts across their path, Rover dashes after it and Jack tumbles out, but laughs at the bump. A short kitten rhyme follows, then we are carried to Meadowbrook Farm for Polly’s birthday photograph. Brother Ned tries to gather her pets—Blackie the cat, Banty the hen, and Gyp the dog—but each wants to be nearest to her. So Ned props a toy cow next to Blackie and a toy lion beside Gyp, and the creatures stand frozen at last. The verse of Idle Ben warns that the boy who means to learn when he is grown will find it too late.

In The Hole in the Canna-Bed, little Chuckie Wuckie is suspected of digging where her father has planted his cannas, but she tearfully maintains her innocence until they discover a fat hop-toad has been making his snug nest each morning. The Conceited Mouse ignores his grandmother’s warning about a trap, finds what he thinks is a charming cheese-house in the cupboard, and discovers his mistake too late.

The chapter then turns toward mothers. James Whitcomb Riley’s boy cannot be as good as his mother, who loves him when she punishes him and cries more bitterly than he does. Rose Fyleman’s mother wears her oldest things in the morning and her shiniest dress at bedtime, when she tells stories like a fairy. In “The Goodest Mother,” a weary woman toiling home through the wind hears her rosy-cheeked boy declare she is “the goodest mother that ever was.” Carrie Williams’s girl learned to cook day by day at her mother’s side, and Ethel M. Kelley’s mischievous tot admits to every crime a toddler can commit. Miriam S. Clark’s child declares his mother the lady fair with sunlight on her hair, while he is the knight in armor. “How Many Lumps!” ponders the proper sweetness of chocolate until a little girl decides to take only one, copying her dear mama. Clara Odell Lyon’s Bobby promises to be good while his mother locks away every match, scissors, and hammer.

Blanche Elizabeth Wade’s verse rejects the romance of foreign names in favor of plain Smithville. Then grandmothers and aunts arrive in procession. Helen A. Byrom’s grandmother drifts in memory to the gray farm-house of her girlhood, with its spinning-wheel and distant waterfall. Cora Walker Hayes describes Great-aunt Lucy Lee, the prim little lady at number three with clicking knitting-needles and a peppermint tin, who tends a garden of roses and bleeding-hearts. Isabel Lyndall catalogs what each visitor brings—grandma’s cookies, grandpa’s wound-up toys, Aunt Sarah’s disapproval, Uncle Jack’s teasing quarters. “Beautiful Grandmamma” tells of little Mary who begs to see what her grandmother looked like as a child and is shown her own face in a faded photograph. Lydia Maria Child’s “Thanksgiving Day” sings of sleigh rides over the river to grandfather’s house, with bells ringing “Ting-a-ling-ding!” “Grandma’s Minuet” imagines the gentlefolk of long ago dancing with stately grace, while Norman Gale’s Aunt Jan romps through the house, plays the piano, and leaves children weeping at the station—though spring will bring her back. “After Tea” finds a father telling stories with his child upon his knee while mother sews beside them.

The chapter closes with a flight of alphabets: the rhythmic “Tingle, Tangle Titmouse,” in which robin masters his letters while puppy and cockatoo decline; a plain English alphabet of apple and bran; Edward Lear’s Nonsense Alphabet of ant and zebra; his “Past History,” where A was once an apple-pie and B was once a little bear; and the cumulative “Apple Pie” that runs through every letter. Carolyn Wells’s “Who’s Who in the Zoo?” parades whimsical beasts from Antelope to Zibet—the Leopard mourning his out-of-date spots, the Tiger best kept as a rug, the Gnu merry and frivolous. The old rhyme “A Was an Archer” closes the gathering.

VIII

This cheerful, whimsical chapter opens with Carolyn Wells’ playful alphabet rhymes, pairing each letter with silly, relatable little characters to make learning feel like a game: Affable Andy snacks on sugar candy, Boisterous Ben shoots at a hen, Careless Corinne loses her gold pin, rolling through jaunty Jack stepping on a tack, rollicking Rory reading a long story, all the way to zealous Zed standing on his head, even the ampersand gets a playful cameo holding a book. Next comes Mrs. Frederick Peterson’s gentle Child Health Alphabet, a cozy rhyme guide that pairs each letter with healthy, kid-friendly habits: fresh apples and crisp air, thick butter on brown bread, iron-rich spinach and eggs, plus soft reminders about rest, clean soap, and skipping tea and coffee, wrapping up with the note that Z stands for the zest health brings to life. The section closes with a bouncy singalong rhyme about the struggle to master the ABCs, followed by a charming roundup of classic children’s stories tied to each letter, from Aladdin and Cinderella to The Gingerbread Boy and Simple Simon, inviting young readers to dive into all those beloved tales.