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

From days of the week, the chapter turns to number rhymes. The familiar “1, 2, 3, 4, 5” releases a caught hare, and Olive A. Wadsworth’s beloved “Over in the Meadow” counts mothers and their little ones from one to twelve, each with its own verb: a mother toad winks, fish swim, bluebirds sing, muskrats dive, bees buzz, crows caw, crickets chirp, lizards bask, frogs croak, spiders spin, fireflies shine, and ants toil. “Counting Apple-Seeds” counts loves, suitors, weddings, and kisses, and “Twins” by Lucy Fitch Perkins admits that two baby siblings look so alike that only Mother can tell them apart. Kate N. Mytinger’s “Rhyme of Ten Little Rabbits” has one rabbit running, two unsure, three climbing a tree, four swinging, and so on, until ten form a line and scamper off. A.S. Webber’s “In July” counts down ten careless firecrackers, each undone by a different mischief until the last one sits down to cry at how risky life is in summer. Other short rhymes tell of Priscilla Penelope Powers, who sighs for a neighbor’s richer tea-table, and of Winkelman Von Winkel, the wisest man alive, who stays aloof from common folk. “Ten Little Cookies” follows a plate of cookies as Grandma, Betty, a butcher boy, an old hen, a little dog, grandpa, mamma, and finally Baby Jane each take one. “Our Baby” catalogs a head of curly hair, two fat arms, ten pink toes, and skin as white as milk. Elizabeth Prentiss’s “Long Time Ago” tells of a white kitten and a little mousie, with four soft paws, nine pearl teeth, and a narrow escape. “Buckle My Shoe” chains together twenty classic domestic commands.

The final section, “Stories for Little Girls,” opens with H.G. Duryee’s “A Pair of Gloves.” On Amity Street, every girl wears mittens tied with long reins to keep them paired, and the most inseparable friends are Clarabel Bradley and Josephine Brown, who tangle their mitten strings together every other day. Their friendship nearly wrecks over a pair of glossy brown kid gloves with fur cuffs and gilded clasps, sent by Clarabel’s fashionable Aunt Bessie with the explicit instruction to wear them to school. Clarabel struts, Josephine is dazzled but pretends to prefer her own red mittens, and the two quarrel—Josephine making a sharp remark about Aunt Bessie’s age, and Clarabel flushing crimson and running off. The rest of the day is cold and lonely: Josephine pairs off with Milly Smith and the geography prize, Clarabel fails her arithmetic and is kept after school, and her triumphant procession home becomes strangely hollow. But when Josephine tiptoes into the empty room, asks permission to take her seat, and creeps row by row to sit beside her friend, the teacher sweetly invites her to help. The two smile and smile, finish the fractions, and walk home together, each wearing one glove and one mitten, the two bare-furred hands waving gaily in the air.

Alice E. Allen’s “A Very Little Story of a Very Little Girl” tells of tiny Molly, who is given permission to visit Miss Eleanor on the afternoon her mother is secretly preparing a surprise ice-cream party. Molly is told to come home at “five minutes after three,” but as she walks, singing and stopping to hug a friendly dog named Fritz, she mixes the words up and arrives at Miss Eleanor’s announcing she can stay “three minutes after five.” When the clock strikes five, she is sent home, but the parlor is bright and noisy with party voices. She bursts in crying “Where have you been?” and Mother, laughing, forgives the muddled hours. Lois Walters’s “Edith’s Tea-Party” follows a girl who writes her own invitation, botches the spelling of “Tuesday” so badly it looks like “Thursday,” and waits alone under the trees for a Helen who never comes until Mother phones and the mistake is discovered. Helen runs over with her dolly, the two put their dolls to bed in the shade under a napkin, and share cookies and lady-fingers at last. Eleanor Piatt’s “Rebecca” is a simple verse about a child who combs, dresses, cooks for, and doctor-telephones for her beloved doll, then snuggles down to sleep beside her.

Eunice Ward’s longer “Dorothea’s School Gifts” is the centerpiece. Dorothea, the family’s “Youngest,” laments that those facing something unpleasant—going back to day-school, for example—never get the presents that graduates, brides, and travelers receive. Her sympathetic family quietly decides to change that. On the first school morning she is wakened by a startling ting-a-ling: a real alarm clock with a yellow ruff, gift from brother Jim, and a note promising it will be properly wound each night. From Cousin Edith come a half-dozen blue-bordered handkerchiefs with a little D, because Dorothea is famous for inking her hankies at school. From Bob, her future brother-in-law, a pearl-handled penknife with a teasing rhyme; from Florence, a silver-mounted eraser with a tiny brush, because Dorothea rushes her work; and from Anita, a green suede blotter set ornamented with four-leaf clovers. Even her father contributes a slender inlaid box of sharpened pencils, pens, and a gunmetal holder, and her old satchel has been replaced overnight with a new brown leather bag bearing her monogram. With her new bag swinging and her family waving at the gate, Dorothea runs off to declare that the first day of school is splendid after all.

The chapter closes with Bolton Hall’s cautionary “The Lost Money.” Doris’s papa gives her a five-dollar bill, which she changes at the bank into two two-dollar bills and a silver dollar, and then into a confusion of quarters, dimes, and nickels. She spends her dollar on a cheap paint-box that won’t paint, two rubber balloons that wilt by morning, and a whole pound of candy so bad it cannot be eaten. When she cries that she has nothing left of her beautiful dollar but fifteen cents, the lesson is plain.