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For the Story Teller: Chapter 1 - The Apperceptive Basic of Story Telling

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey is part of the HackerNoon Books series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . PREFACE The new-old art of story telling is being rediscovered. We are finding that the children’s daily story hour in school, in the neighborhood house, and at home is a real force for mental and moral good in their lives. We are learning that it is possible to educate children by means of stories. Story telling to be a developing factor in a child’s life must be studied by the story teller. There are good stories and there are poor stories for children. The story that fits a child’s needs to-day may not prove a wise choice for him to-morrow. Some stories teach, some stories only give joy, some stories inspire, some stories just make a child laugh. Each of these story phases is important. To discover these special types of stories, to fit stories to the individual child or child group, and to make over stories for perfect telling has been my aim in writing this book. Through telling stories to many thousands of children and lecturing to students I have found that story telling is a matter of psychology. The pages that follow give my new theory of story telling to the teacher or parent. Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin. 2018. For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58107/58107-h/58107-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell: Preface

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey is part of the HackerNoon Books series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter V - STORY CLIMAX CHAPTER V. STORY CLIMAX We have found it helpful to liken the effect that a well-written, well-told story has upon a child’s mind to the appeal that a successful drama makes to an audience. We have discovered that the opening paragraph, the first sentence of a child’s story should have the quality that characterizes the scene disclosed on the stage when the curtain rolls up—compelling interest. Following this curtain raising of the story, there should be a series of pictorial scenes that carry the events that go to make up the story plot, strung upon a slender thread of curiosity, and giving the element of suspense to the story. Following out this story structure we come, eventually, to the end. The curtain must fall at last before the eyes of the child audience and the closing of the story drama should be as mind stimulating as was its beginning. This is brought about by studying carefully the story climax. The climax of a story should be a complete surprise to the listener and to the characters in the story, as well. This quick note of the unexpected coming with compelling suddenness at the end of our story clinches the interest of the plot and makes the story indelible on the child’s mind sheet. Certain well-known instances of climax as exemplified in child stories will clarify for us its surprise quality. In one of the older plantation folk tales, Mr. Elephant and Mr. Frog are pictured as being good friends until Mr. Hare taunts them with their dissimilarity in size and says that Mr. Frog has boasted of the fact that Mr. Elephant is his “riding horse.” Then the story continues: “Mr. Fox and Mr. Tiger and Mr. Lion all followed after Mr. Hare, crying: ‘Oho, oho, Mr. Elephant is little Mr. Frog’s riding horse.’ “Then Mr. Elephant turned around and he said in a very gruff voice to Mr. Frog: “‘Did you tell them, grandson, that I was your horse?’ “And Mr. Frog said in a high, squeaky voice:— “‘No, no, grandfather.’ “But all the time Mr. Frog was thinking of a trick to play on Mr. Elephant. “The next day, Mr. Elephant and Mr. Frog started off for a long walk. Mr. Frog had heard of a place where the swamps were deep and muddy. Mr. Elephant knew a place where the bananas grew ripe and thick. And they spent a pleasant day. On the way home Mr. Frog hopped up close to Mr. Elephant, and he said in his high, squeaky voice:— “‘Grandfather, I have no strength to walk. Let me get up on your back.’ “‘Climb up, my grandson,’ said Mr. Elephant. “He put his trunk down for a ladder, and Mr. Frog climbed up. They had not gone very far when Mr. Frog hopped up close to Mr. Elephant’s ear, and he said:— “‘I am going to fall, grandfather. Give me some small cords from the roadside that I may bind your mouth, and hold myself upon your back.’ “‘I will, grandson,’ said Mr. Elephant. “So Mr. Elephant stripped some small cords from a birch tree by the roadside, and handed them to Mr. Frog. Then Mr. Frog bound Mr. Elephant’s mouth, and they went on a little farther. It was not long, though, before Mr. Frog spoke again to Mr. Elephant. “‘Grandfather,’ he said, ‘find me a small green twig that I may fan the mosquitoes from your ears.’ “‘I will, grandson,’ said Mr. Elephant, so he broke a small, green twig from the birch tree, and reached it up to Mr. Frog; and just then they came toward home. “‘See Mr. Elephant,’ cried Mr. Hare. “‘See Mr. Elephant,’ cried Mr. Tiger. “‘See Mr. Elephant,’ cried Mr. Lion, and all the others, ‘Mr. Elephant is Mr. Frog’s horse.’ “Mr. Elephant turned himself about, and he saw Mr. Frog on his back, holding the reins and the whip. “‘Why, so I am, grandson,’ said Mr. Elephant. “Then Mr. Frog jumped down to the ground, and he laughed and he laughed until he nearly split his coat, because he had played a trick on Mr. Elephant.” This quotation serves very well to illustrate perfect story climax. In the beginning of the story, an apparently impossible situation was suggested. To the child listener it seems incredible that an elephant could so far forget his dignity as to serve as the steed of a frog. To the elephant himself, as well, this situation appears to be incompatible with his social status in the jungle. As the story advances, each scene prepares a way for the unexpected dénouement and the climax is found in the surprise to the hearers and to Mr. Elephant as well when the curtain falls upon him unwittingly playing the part of “riding horse” to little Mr. Frog. Hans Christian Andersen’s inimitable allegory of “The Ugly Duckling” owes a measure, at least, of its popularity to its perfect climax. In the beautiful word pictures of the story we follow its hero, the Ugly Duckling, through his series of perilous and sorrowful adventures, sympathizing with but not anticipating the outcome of them. In no single one of the scenes of the story do we have a hint of the glorious ending of the hero’s journeying. Finally comes a quick, artistic curtain falling: —“Then he flew toward the beautiful swans. As soon as they saw him they rushed to meet him with outstretched wings. “‘Kill me!’ said the Ugly Duckling; but as he bent his head, what did he see reflected in the water? It was his own image—not a dark, gray bird, ugly to see—but a graceful swan. “Then the great swans swam around him and stroked his neck with their beaks for a welcome. Some little children came into the garden. “‘See,’ they cried, clapping their hands. “‘A new swan has come and he is more beautiful than the others!’”— This story climax is perfect, also, because it carries the element of surprise to the story hearers and the story hero, the Ugly Duckling, as well. It seems to be almost impossible to find many instances of well constructed climax in the short story for children. The story teller must look for climax and in the event of not being able to find it in the story that she selects for telling, it will be necessary for her to make over her story ending that it may be a complete surprise to her listeners, in this way strengthening the plot greatly. Many stories just stop, giving one a feeling of dissatisfaction. There has been no climax to make of the whole a finished picture, complete in its minutest detail of light and shade and forming an unerasable vignette, on the child’s mind. Climax knots the thread of the narrative. Certain child stories, however, stand out as illuminating instances of what climax means in deepening the mental appeal for the child, etching the story picture, so to speak. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Great Stone Face,” forms one instance. A careful reading of the story will disclose Hawthorne’s subtle use of suspense, the art of “making his audience wait” for his dénouement. He makes us see the fertile valley beneath the great mountain upon whose side there had been sculptured by Nature, the wonderful stone face. We are carried, breathlessly, along upon the tide of the narrative through the boy Ernest’s longing to bear the image of these beautiful features, the futile attempts of old Gathergold, old Blood-and-Thunder and the others to prove their likeness to the Great Stone Face until we reach our climax in Ernest’s own transformation into the great likeness unsuspected by himself or by us. It seems to be the great short story writers, only, who have given us really illuminating instances of climax—surprise ending—in stories that will appeal to children in a stimulating way. In Hawthorne’s “Snow Image” the curtain falls upon a surprise situation. Oscar Wilde leaves us unconsolable at his apparent ending of “The Happy Prince.” The little swallow is dead and the Prince has given away his gold and jewels. “So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince who was no longer beautiful and so no longer useful and they melted the statue in the furnace. “‘What a strange thing!’ said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. ‘This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away!’ “So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead swallow was also lying.” But as we hold our breath, the climax is flung gloriously out. “‘Bring me the two most precious things in the City,’ said God to one of His Angels and the Angel brought him the leaden heart and the dead bird. “‘You have rightly chosen,’ said God, ‘for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.’” In the story of Cosette and her doll in “Les Misérables,” Victor Hugo has given us a complete story vignette with a perfectly developed climax of surprise as Jean Valjean gives to Cosette, the “toad” of Madame Thenardier’s Kitchen, the doll about which she had dreamed. Laura Richard’s short stories for children abound in instances of illuminating climax—no hint of the story ending being given until the curtain falls. Her story of “The Golden Windows” in which a little boy sets out upon a journey to find the windows of gold that he sees beyond the village from his own poor little home and discovers at the end of the day that his own home windows, viewed from a distance are gold and those he has found are gray and dull, is an example of Mrs. Richards’ skilled use of climax to force her story point into the child’s mind. The mental appeal of climax is a very real and vital one for the consideration of the story teller. Once we fix in our minds the two characteristics of artistic story ending, surprise to the story characters and to the children, and an ending that ties the knot of the narrative, our story curtain will fall, leaving the children a lap farther along in their mental development than they were when the curtain rose. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin. 2018. For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58107/58107-h/58107-h.htm#Page_83 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

For the Story Teller: Chapter 5 - Story Climax

For the Story Teller: Chapter 4 - Using Suspense to Develop Concentration

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey is part of the HackerNoon Books series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter III - WHEN THE CURTAIN RISES CHAPTER III. WHEN THE CURTAIN RISES A TIRED-OUT, unenthusiastic school teacher in one of our large public schools was recently endeavoring to secure the attention of her class for a story. This story hour was, for her, just one lap in the march of the day’s routine, a period to be finished as soon as possible, and she began it in a stereotyped way. “I am going to tell you a story, children,” she said, “and I want every child in the room to sit up straight, put his feet flat on the floor and fold his hands. When everybody is ready, I will begin.” In contrast one is reminded of another teacher, who opened her story hour in a different way. In point of fact, she did not really open it at all in the formal understanding of the word. Nor did she have any specified period of the day for telling stories. When her class was fatigued and needed a note of relaxation, when they were restless and needed calming, when they seemed to need inspiration, she gave the signal for books and pencils to be put away and with no further introduction she took the children with her to Story Land for a space, opening her story in so interesting a way that she compelled attention without asking for it. The instance of the first story teller is an example of securing a child’s voluntary attention. The second story teller illustrated a method of securing a child’s involuntary, almost unconscious attention. Especially in the case of the little child who is beginning his school work, and even up to the more mature years of childhood, voluntary attention, that mental operation in which the will is called upon to open the doors of the senses and let in knowledge, is almost too much for us to ask of a child. The wonderful machinery of the mind has provided another and much more economic means of knowledge acquisition. Certain mind stimuli will set the whole wireless system of perception, association and memory going without any effort on the part of the story teller save that of discovering the stimuli. In other words, we must secure involuntary attention in children through studying their interests. The story that opens with headlines of child interest as compelling as those of one of our yellow news sheets will hold a child’s attention without his being in the least conscious of his attitude of mind toward it. Voluntary attention, the mind attitude toward a story that is brought about by folded hands and straight backs, is very likely to lapse, to develop a will-o’-the-wisp character and finally lose itself. Concentrated attention can be secured in children only through the medium of appealing to child interest. The successful story teller will bear in mind the fact, in selecting stories to tell, that the good story for children of any age, and adults too, for that matter, should have one of the qualities that characterize a successful drama. It must catch the attention of the audience the moment the curtain rises. There must be no long explanation, no descriptive scenes and painful dragging in of the plot. Children do not care a rap for the creating of atmosphere. They do not care how long ago the story events happened, or why they happened. What they are eager for is a quick story appeal made the second that the story curtain rolls up. Each story told to children ought to be selected having in mind its beginning. The story teller must ask herself another set of questions: “Does the story interest begin with my first paragraph, my first sentence, my first word?” “Will the opening of my story find an apperceptive basis for attention in the minds of my children?” “Has my story a sense appeal in the first sentence?” Any one of these qualities of story opening will help to win the sympathy of the child audience and will find a ready response in involuntary attention. A class of little street boys waged continued warfare upon one of the New York Settlement Houses. They broke the windows, mobbed the Settlement children and carefully evaded the police. The Settlement story teller decided, one night, to open the doors of the house to the gang of boys and see if it would not be possible to win them over to an interest in the work of the Settlement and lead them to obey the laws of society through stories. The boys entered the building like a besieging army. They shouted, stamped, stampeded into the room that had been assigned them and throwing down chairs and overturning tables they proceeded to produce a scene of Bedlam. The story teller made no effort to control the boys. She secured for herself a place of vantage in the center of the room. When there was an instant’s lull in the uproar that the boys were making, as they took breath for more rowdyism, she said in a low, even tone of voice: “There was once a little Indian boy who rode fifty miles on the cow-catcher of an engine.” Then she waited and the boys waited, too, breathlessly eager for her next words. When she saw that she had caught the interest of her audience, she proceeded with the story in the same even, low voice, not so much telling the boys a story, apparently, but just telling a story, every sentence of which painted a word picture and the whole being a graphic series of moving pictures unrolled on a story film before her audience. She gave the story facts about the Indian lad who had never seen a locomotive and stole a daring ride on one because he thought it was a fire-horse. One by one the boys seated themselves quietly on the chairs or on the floor to listen. Several lay flat upon the floor, crawling stealthily nearer to the story teller as their interest in the story deepened. Throughout the entire telling of the story the room was absolutely still, and when the climax came the boys asked for another story. From that evening they were the Settlement’s stanch allies. It would have been impossible to secure the voluntary attention of these boys. The fact that some one wanted to tell them a story would have probably inspired them to more lawlessness. If the story teller had begun the story after this fashion:— “Fifty years ago there were few railways in the western part of our country. The prairies were peopled by Comanche tribes who were unfamiliar with the inventions of civilization, and the first train that ran through an Indian settlement inspired an Indian lad to a strange deed”— Not a boy would have listened. This form of story beginning is bad and phenomenally common in many stories for children. It is an example of words, not interest stimuli. It explains a story situation instead of presenting it. A story to secure the involuntary attention of children should have the quality of a crashing orchestral overture, a thunder clap, a pistol shot—so unexpected, compelling, and penetrating will it be. “There was once a little Indian boy who rode fifty miles on the cow-catcher of an engine!” Could there be a more stimulating story beginning for a group of boys than this? There is an apperceptive appeal in the Indian lad. He was not a man, not a chieftain, but just a little lad like themselves. There is an immediate sense appeal in the steam-engine image that the story beginning brings to their minds. Smoke, smell, bell ringing, whistle blowing, steam escaping, and the rattle of iron wheels on iron tracks are all recalled to a boy’s mind in one glorious bit of imagination whose only stimulus is the word engine. Then, to clinch the apperceptive and sensory appeal of the sentence, is the quick introduction of a new story interest—the Indian boy did a deed that they, in their wildest dreams, had never considered—he rode an engine. If a story, otherwise good, opens poorly—is too wordy, too descriptive, too pedantic—study the story carefully for its main interest and, selecting just the right words to convey this overture of interest, begin there. It will be discovered that certain of the classic, favorite tales of childhood fulfill this story test. They open compellingly and carry the interest that was stimulated in the first paragraph clear through to the end. “There were once five and twenty tin soldiers who were all brothers, for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon.” Hans Christian Andersen used the child’s instinctive love of counting his toys, and a bit of humor that tickles a child’s fancy, when he wrote this opening paragraph of his wonderful old allegory, “The Faithful Tin Soldier.” “Once upon a time there lived a cat and a parrot and they thought they would ask each other to dinner, turn and turn about.” This folk tale of “The Greedy Cat” opens with a strong sense appeal. The children’s interest aroused in the first sentence by means of the progressive dinner arrangement of the famous cat is sustained to the last word of the story. “He was a wee little duck with a very long tail, so he was called Drakestail. Now Drakestail had some money of his very, very own and the King asked if he might take it. So Drakestail loaned all his money to the King—” In this old folk tale, the gist of which is the merry adventures of a duck, the story interest begins with the first sentence. The children are introduced, with no unnecessary preliminaries of description or explanation to the hero, Drakestail, and then they are plunged into the story itself, interesting and direct in its appeal. “Some children were at play in their playground one day, when a herald rode through the town, blowing a trumpet and crying aloud: ‘The King! The King is coming!’” In this story, Laura E. Richards’ “Coming of the King,” to be found in her collection of short stories, “The Golden Windows,” a strong sense appeal commands the child’s involuntary attention at the beginning of the story. The familiar figures, children at play in their playground, are introduced to the sound of a trumpet’s call, instantly attracting the attention of the child listeners. Once the story teller has learned story selection, having in mind a beginning that will hold the attention of her audience from her first word, her success will be secured. It is also possible to carry this interest which has been secured for the child the instant that the curtain rolls up, straight through to the end of the story, because of its compelling beginning. The opening paragraph of a child’s story should be the theme, tuned to the key and melody of child interest about which and on which the rest of the story plays. The noteworthy dinner of the cat and the mouse forms the keynote for the rest of the classic adventures of the Greedy Cat. The “wee little duck” and the avaricious old King whom we meet in the first paragraph are the main actors in the story drama of Drakestail. The playground of the children that we see in the first sentence of Mrs. Richards’ “The Coming of the King,” is the scene of a story miracle almost unparalleled in short story writing for children. Cutting out unnecessary description, avoiding any explanation as to why you are telling the story, introducing your thunder clap, your trumpet, your story hero in the first sentence—this is the way to begin a story. “The Prince’s Visit,” by Horace Scudder, is an excellent example of sustained story interest brought about by means of a compelling story opening. The Prince’s Visit It was a holiday in the city, for the Prince was to arrive. As soon as the cannon should sound, the people might know that the Prince had landed from the steamer, and when they should hear the bells ring that was as much as being told that the Prince, dressed splendidly, and wearing a feather in his cap, was actually on his way up the main street of the city, seated in a carriage drawn by four coal-black horses, and with the soldiers and music going on before. It was holiday in the workshops, too, and little Job was listening for the cannon and the bells. He was only a poor, foolish little lad, and he did nothing all day long but turn the crank that worked a great washing machine; but when he heard the boom of the guns, he shuffled out and made his way home. Ever since he had heard of the Prince’s coming, Job had dreamed of nothing else. He bought a picture of the Prince and pinned it up on the wall over his bed; and when he came home at night, tired and hungry, he would sit down by his mother, who mended holes in the laundry clothes, and talk about the Prince until he could keep his eyes open no longer; and then his mother would kiss him and send him to bed. To-day he hurried so fast that he was quite out of breath when he reached the old house where he lived. “The cannon went off, mother!” he cried. “The Prince is come!” “Everything is ready, Job,” said his mother. “You will find all your things in a row on the bed.” And Job tumbled into his room to dress for the holiday. Everything was there as his mother had said; all the old things renewed, and all the new things pieced together that she had worked on so long, and every stitch of which Job had overlooked and almost directed. “Isn’t it splendid?” he said as he looked at himself in a mirror. Round his throat was a white satin scarf that shone in contrast to his dingy coat, and it was pinned with an old brooch which Job treasured as the apple of his eye. “If you’d only let me wear the feather, mother,” he said. “You look splendidly, Job, and don’t need it,” said she cheerfully; “and, besides, the Prince wears one, and what would he think if he saw you with one, too?” “Sure enough,” said Job, and then he kissed her and started off. “I don’t believe,” he said as he went up the court, “that the Prince would mind my wearing a feather; but mother didn’t want me to. Hark, there are the bells! He must have started!” It was a long way from Job’s house to the main street, and he would have to hurry if he were going to see the grand procession. On he shambled, knocking against the flag-stones, and nearly falling down at every step. He was now in a cross street, which would bring him before long to the main street, and he even thought he heard the distant music and the cheers of the crowd. But just then he stumbled upon something which tripped him. He would have hurried on, but he heard a cry, and a groan of pain. He looked back, and he saw what he had stumbled over. It was a poor beggar boy, without home or friends, dirty and unsightly enough, and clad in ragged clothing, and he was lying on the sidewalk, too ill to move. As Job turned, the boy looked up at him and stretched out his hands, but he was too weak to speak. “He is sick!” said Job. “Hilloa!” but every one was intent upon the procession, and no one heard him. “The Prince is coming,” he said; and he turned as if to run. But the beggar would not away from his eyes. “He is sick,” said Job again, bending down, “I will take him home to mother.” “Hurrah! Hurrah! There he is! The Prince! The Prince!” In the carriage drawn by four coal-black horses rode the Prince; and he was dressed in splendid clothes and he wore a feather in his cap. Job wiped the tears from his eyes as he heard the music and the cheering so far away, but he lifted the little beggar boy in his arms—and started for home. And as he passed along the street with his burden, he heard a sound of beautiful music as if all the angels were singing together, and he looked up into the blue sky above the chimneys and roofs of the city, and he saw the angels with the Prince in the midst of them moving by, and they were all smiling on him, poor, simple Job. So Job saw the Prince pass, too. From “Dream Children.” Used by special permission of Houghton, Mifflin Company. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin. 2018. For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58107/58107-h/58107-h.htm#Page_41 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

For the Story Teller: Chapter 3 - When the Curtain Rises 

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey is part of the HackerNoon Books series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter II: THE STORY WITH A SENSE APPEAL CHAPTER II. THE STORY WITH A SENSE APPEAL THE senses are the only avenues to the brain by means of which the outside world makes its way into a little child’s inner consciousness. A baby’s brain is an almost unexplored, untracked place, empty save for a few instinct paths—certain motor tracts tenanted by inherited memories which lead him to cry, to nurse, and to perform some other reflex movements. This condition of the mind does not last long, however. The baby opens his eyes and sees the sunlight dancing in a yellow patch of gold upon the wall above his bed. Instantly, like a telegraphic message, there is delivered at the baby’s brain an idea, unnamed at first but ineffaceable—color. When he sees a red ball suspended by a string in front of his eager eyes, a second message is delivered at his mind-house, differentiating and localizing the first impression—color versus color. The formal names, red and yellow, do not enter into the process at all and are indeed quite unnecessary. The baby differentiates red and yellow months before he knows the color names. The baby hears his mother’s voice and he receives by means of another telegraphic message the percept, sound. He touches a piece of ice, or his warm bottle, and learns by means of this direct contact, cold and warm. His nostrils admit the pleasurable odors of his scented bath, the dainty powder used for making his body comfortable or the bunch of roses that stands on his mother’s table, and he receives a new set of brain stimuli as he differentiates odors. These are all such simple mental operations that we have rather taken them for granted, forgetting that Nature’s method of forcing, letting in impressions to the child’s mind, is the only way for us to give him knowledge. The surest way of educating a child is through an appeal to his senses. In a large degree this matter of sense training has been exemplified in hand work by the disciples of Froebel and Montessori, but the sense story has been completely overlooked. We have made little effort to appeal to a child’s mind through the story that has sense images of sight, touch, sound or taste to strengthen the mind impression which it makes. If we analyze the story that has interested us most in a current magazine, we shall discover that, somehow, it made a direct appeal to our senses. It may have had the setting of some old garden, the description of which made us, in imagination, smell the clove pinks, roses, French lilacs and mignonette that grew in some garden of our childhood. Perhaps it was a sound story, giving us such speaking word pictures of bird songs, violin tones or even the human notes of voices that we almost heard the story instead of seeing it. On the other hand, the sense appeal of the story may have been that of color, of food—any sense stimulus that routed from their brain corners our old sense impressions and set them to working again. And it is almost impossible to gauge the effect upon cerebration of these stored-up sensory images. That whiff of odor from a city flower cart brings suddenly to my mind an incident that I had not been cognizant of for years—the memory of a certain long-ago day when I purloined my Grandmother’s scissors and cut off two of my curls to make a wig for a hairless rag doll. What is the connection between this day of badness of my childhood and a dingy city flower wagon? Ah, I have it! There was a pot of Martha Washington geraniums in the room where I sat when I cut my hair. My small, serge sleeve brushed the leaves as I held the curls triumphantly to the light and the pungent odor found a permanent place in my mind, side by side with the other memory, ineffaceable, always ready to produce a recall. Dr. Van Dyke once said that if he were able to paint a picture of Memory, he would picture her asleep in a bed of mint. He illustrated the value of sensory stimuli in fiction. One gauge of a perfectly constructed piece of fiction is its sense content. Does it include such writing as will make the reader see, taste, smell and hear? So, in stories for children we must apply the same test. A child’s story, to interest, should have a strong sense appeal. Many of the old, handed-down jingles and folk tales are full of eating and drinking, smelling delectable odors, hearing the sounds of child life and seeing over again child scenes. Therein lies their world appeal and the reason for their ancient and obvious popularity. “The Queen of Hearts, She made some tarts.” “Little Tommy Tucker, sings for his supper; What shall he eat? White bread and butter.” “Ding, dong bell, Pussy’s in the well.” “Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, The beggars are coming to town.” “Rockaby baby, your cradle is green.” “The rose is red, The violet blue, Sugar is sweet And so are you.” One might go on indefinitely quoting lines of Mother Goose that tickle a child’s fancy and are undying in their appeal for the sole reason that they are sensual in the broader understanding of the term. They include simple, direct references to the mental concepts that the child has gained through his senses. Practically all that the normal, natural child has accomplished, mentally, up to the age of three or four years, has been to note bright colors, to handle everything he has come in contact with,—not, as so many persons suppose, for purposes of mischievous destruction, but rather to touch each object and make its feeling an integral part of his ego,—to eat and drink and to use his nostrils as a dog does. What more natural than that his beginnings in English should have for their basis a sense content that will help the child to name, put into words his previously acquired but unnamed sense impressions? Miss Emilie Poulsson’s finger plays for little children have for their basic appeal the stimulating of a child’s ability to recall previously acquired sense impressions. In addition, the finger movements with which the child illustrates these rhymes give the added association of the sense of touch to strengthen and vivify the child’s interest in and memory of the rhyme stories. To illustrate: As the child grows beyond the age when Mother Goose and Finger Plays appeal to him, he still finds his greatest interest in those stories which stimulate his acquired sensory images. The mental operation of apperception described in the last chapter is so inclusive a process, covering, as it must of necessity, memory and perception, that it explains the appeal of the sense story to the mind of a child. Many of the stories quoted at the end of the chapter as being of universal interest to all children find their common points of interest in their sense pictures, so quickly grasped and so warmly welcomed by the child mind whose sense doors are always flung wide open. It is to be questioned whether or not the story of “The Little Red Hen” would have been awarded such immortality if its heroine had been a plain hen and not red. Having been dyed with the crimson pigment of the imagination, however, by some old-world story teller, she has taken her cheerful, cackling way through the streets of childhood, an undying, classic fowl of fiction because she is colored. So it is with Elizabeth Harrison’s wonderful allegory of “The Little Gray Grandmother.” She might have been described in the story as a spirit, a fairy, a mythical character who influenced for good the lives of Wilhelm, Beata and the others. But instead of describing her invisibility—Miss Harrison paints it, colors her story heroine with the shades of intangible things. She is a little gray grandmother and her clothes are sea fog and her veil is of smoke. She is an animated part of the seashore home and is made of gray mist. What could be more artistic than the sense appeal of this story? Why do children—all children—listen, gaping and ecstatic, to the account of the many and hazardous adventures of the Gingerbread Boy? Why do they beg to have the story told over again, even after they have heard it so many times that they know it by heart. Its universal popularity is not due to its folklore quality. Neither is it due to its plot and treatment, although these undoubtedly strengthen it. Its big appeal, however, is to the child’s sense of taste. The story arouses tasting images in the child’s mind, that are pleasurable and strong. ... “A chocolate jacket and cinnamon seeds for buttons! His eyes were made of fine, fat currants; his mouth was made of rose-colored sugar and he had a gay little cap of orange-sugar candy”—Sara Cone Bryant says in describing her Gingerbread Man. So, from this delectable, luscious paragraph about his make-up, to the climax of the story when the Gingerbread Man is devoured by the fox, the child hearers eat in imagination all the way. “Why the Chimes Rang” makes a different and more ethical sense appeal to the child’s mind. The story stimulates in the listeners a deep interest in the old chime of bells that has hung silent for so long a time in the tower. One longs to hear them and waits anxiously for the miracle that will start their pealing. At the story climax, when an unselfish offering laid upon the altar works the wonder, it is possible to listen, in imagination, to the bells’ sweet music. But why make this sense appeal to the child mind through the medium of a story, the story teller asks? There are two very real and definite uses to which the sense story may be put. Such sense stories as “The Little Red Hen,” “The Gingerbread Boy” and many others of similar character may be told not only to give pleasure to the child of kindergarten age who finds delight in their sensual content, but they have a very real value in resurrecting the dormant brain of a mentally deficient child. More and more attention is being given every year to the education of the feeble-minded child, both at home and in the public schools. We are discovering that it is possible to rouse to action a child’s sleeping brain by means of intensive sense training. We are teaching him to smell, taste, see color, discriminate forms and textiles, to open the telegraphic circuit of his senses. We are putting the world of realities into the arms of the feeble-minded child to touch, feel, taste, smell, see. So we educate him, but we must carry out the same system of sense training in his stories, selecting for his hearing those stories that make verbal and recall his previously acquired sense impressions. There is one other use to which we may put the sense story. It is a means of strengthening any child’s imagination. The same mental operation by means of which a baby associates the idea cold with a block of ice, helps the child to feel the cold of Andersen’s “Little Match Girl.” In the first instance the association of cold and ice means self-preservation for the baby. He wishes to avoid an unpleasant sensation, so he does not touch the ice, but his former experience of touching it has left an ineffaceable image in his mind. In the second instance, the image cold is recalled in the mind of the child by the story and the result is a very different mental process. The child is able through the sensory stimulus of the story to feel with the little match girl, to put himself in her place, to understand her condition, because it is brought to him in a familiar term—cold. The story teller who makes the wisest use of the sense story sees to it that the color, sound, taste or odor described in the story is used as a means to an end. One does not wish to stimulate sense images in a child’s mind for the simple operation of “making his thinking machine work” in old paths. What we must do is to utilize his sense impressions to strengthen new brain paths. Fortunately nearly all of the stories for children that have a sensory content utilize this mode of writing to strengthen the climax of the story. It only remains for the story teller to select her color, sound, taste, odor or touch story to meet the special needs of her children. The following story is an excellent illustration of utilizing the sense of taste to point a moral: The Three Cakes Once upon a time there was a little boy named Henry, who was away from his home at a boarding school. He was a very special kind of boy, forever at his book, and he happened once to get to the very tip top of his class. His mother was told of it, and when it came morning, she got up early and went to speak with the cook as follows: “Cook, you are to make a cake for Henry, who has been very good at school.” “With all my heart,” said the cook, and she made a cake. It was as big as—let me see—as big as the moon. It was stuffed with nuts, and raisins, and figs, and candied fruit peel, and over it all was an icing of sugar, thick, and smooth, and very white. And no sooner was the cake home from the baking than the cook put on her bonnet and carried it to the school. When Henry first saw it, he jumped up and down. He was not patient enough to wait for a knife, but he fell upon the cake tooth and nail. He ate and ate until school began, and after school was over he ate again with his might and main. At night he ate until bedtime, and he put the cake under his bolster when he went to bed and he waked and waked a dozen times that he might take a bite. [36] But the next day when the dinner bell rang, Henry was not hungry, and was vexed to see how heartily the other children ate. His friends asked him if he would not play at cricket, tan, or kits. Ah! Henry could not; so they played without him, and Henry could scarcely stand upon his legs. He went and sat down in a corner, and the head master sent for the apothecary to come with all his phials of physic. After some days Henry was well again, but his mother said that she would never let him have another cake. Now there was another scholar in the same school, whose name was Francis. He had written his mother a very pretty letter without one misspelled word or blot, and so his mother, like the mother of Henry, sent him a great cake. Francis decided that he would not be so unwise as to follow the example of Henry, so he took the cake, which was so heavy that he could hardly lift it, and he watched to see that no one was looking, and he slipped up to his chamber and put the cake in his box under lock and key. Every day at play time he used to slip away from his companions, go upstairs on tiptoe, and cut off a tolerable slice of his cake which he would eat by himself. For a whole week did he keep this up, but alas—the cake was so exceedingly large! At last the cake grew dry, and quickly after it became moldy. Finally the maggots got into it, and Francis, with great reluctance, was obliged to throw it away. [37] There was a third little gentleman who went to the same school as Henry and Francis, and his name was Gratian. One day his mother, whom he loved very dearly, sent him a cake because she also loved him. No sooner had it arrived than Gratian called his friends all about him, and said: “Come! Look at what my mother has sent me. You must, each one, have a piece.” So the children all got around the cake as bees resort to a flower, just blown, and Gratian divided the cake with a knife into as many pieces as he had invited boys, with one piece over, for himself. His own piece he said he would eat the next day, and he began playing games with the boys. But a very short time had passed, as they were playing, when a poor man who was carrying a fiddle came into the school yard. He had a very long, gray beard, and he was guided by a little dog who went before him, for the old man was blind. [38] The children noticed how dexterous was the little dog in leading, and how he shook a bell which hung underneath his collar, as if to say: “Do not throw down or run against my master!” When the two had come into the yard, the old man sat down upon a stone, and said: “My dear little gentlemen, I will play you all the pretty tunes that I know, if you will give me leave.” The children wished for nothing half so much as to hear the music, so the old man put his violin in tune and then played over jigs and tunes that had been new in former times. But Gratian, who was standing close to him, noticed that while he played his jolliest airs, a tear would often roll down his cheeks. And Gratian asked him why he wept. “Because,” said the old man, “I am hungry. I have not any one in the world to feed me, or my faithful dog.” Then Gratian felt like crying, too, and he ran to fetch the cake which he had saved to eat himself. He brought it out with joy, and as he ran along he said: [39] “Here, good man, here is some cake for you.” Then Gratian put the cake into the old man’s hands and he, laying down his fiddle, wiped his eyes and began to eat. At every piece he put into his mouth he gave a bit to his faithful little dog, who ate from his hand; and Gratian, standing by, had as much pleasure as if he had eaten the cake himself. From the French of Monsieur Berquin’s L’Ami des Enfants—1784 About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin. 2018. For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58107/58107-h/58107-h.htm#Page_23 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

For the Story Teller: Chapter 2 - The Story with Sense Appeal 

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey is part of the HackerNoon's Book series. Read this book online for free on HackerNoon! Title: For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell Author: Carolyn Sherwin Bailey Release Date: October 18, 2018 [EBook #58107] Language: English TABLE OF LINKS Preface Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 STORIES FOR TELLING The Cap that Mother Made, adapted from Swedish Fairy Tales Goody Two Shoes The Three Cakes, from Monsieur Berquin’s L’Ami des Enfants3 The Prince’s Visit, Horace E. Scudder The Travels of a Fox, Clifton Johnson Little Lorna Doone, adapted from Richard Blackmore Little In-a-Minute Old Man Rabbit’s Thanksgiving Dinner The Great Stone Face, adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne Little Tuk, Hans Christian Andersen The Selfish Giant, Oscar Wilde The Gingerbread Boy (dramatized), Carolyn Sherwin Bailey The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse (dramatized), Carolyn Sherwin Bailey The Woodpecker Who Was Selfish, adapted from an Indian Folk Tale The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings, adapted from a Southern Folk Tale The Little Lame Prince, adapted from Miss Mulock The Blue Robin, Mary Wilkins Freeman The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. (2018). FOR THE STORY TO TELLER STORY TELLING AND STORIES TO TELL. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved DATE, from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58107/58107-h/58107-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey - Table of Links

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey is part of HackerNoon Books Series
. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter XIII: PLANNING STORY GROUPS THE children who hear one story well told eagerly demand, “Tell us another!” It is the natural, to-be-desired longing of the child mind to be satiated with good stories. We endeavor to meet the children’s wish for a number of stories in each story hour but we often hurt the mental and moral effect of one story by telling in close connection another story that has no interest connection with the last one told. We lead the child from one story interest to another with slight attention to the influence which the story group will have upon the minds of the children. We tell, perhaps, a home story, then a nature story, and last of all a holiday story in one story hour, and in doing this we so quickly transfer the child’s attention from one theme to a distinctly different one that there is no cohesion in our story building. We break down instead of building up the powers of concentration of our children. Planning a group of stories for one story hour is quite as much a matter to be studied as is the selection of each individual story in the group and preparing this story for telling. The story combination selected by the story teller must have the qualities of cohesion, unity of theme, and related interests to make the story hour valuable in the child’s life. On the other hand, the unity of theme in the separate stories chosen must be emphasized by contrasting story treatment of this central theme. A group of stories in which each story is just like its predecessor and similar to the story that follows will tire the child listeners. We must bring about cohesion in the story hour by means of contrast in the treatment of each story. Our first thought in planning story groups will be: Select the story theme for the story hour. This story theme will be some idea which we want to bring forcefully to the minds of our children. The story hour motif may be: animals, the home, trades, birds, flowers, heroes, a holiday or some ethical theme as: honesty, truth or charity, but each of the stories selected for the story group will have an animal, home, trade, bird, flower, hero, holiday, honesty, truth or charity theme. Our second thought in planning story groups will be: Select stories which present the selected theme in contrasting treatment. Three stories form an excellent number for one story hour. Each of these stories will illustrate one central idea that a continuing thread of interest may be carried through the story group and knotted at the end of the story hour. But each story will make a different mental appeal in presenting the theme that the children may have the benefit of contrast in helping them to concentrate upon listening to all the stories that make up the group. The first of these three stories should be selected having in mind the securing of the involuntary attention of the children. It should be an apperceptive story that finds quick interpretation in the minds of the children because its ideas are their ideas, its scenes are familiar to theirs and its characters are people like the people whom they meet and know in their every-day environment. Having caught the children’s attention involuntarily by a story that finds a place by its familiarity of treatment in their own lives, the second story in the group may make a different mental appeal. It may make the children reason; it may take them far afield in their thinking, it may be the longest story in the group and so call for greater concentration on the part of the story teller. The last story in the story group will be selected for mental relaxation after the tense attention demanded for the second story. It may be a humorous story, a very short story, or one so contrasted in treatment to the other stories in the group that it gives rest because of its difference. To illustrate with one typical story group will be helpful. We wish to make the thought of industry the central thought for a story hour. The first story in the story group might be “The Sailor Man” by Laura E. Richards. This story catches and holds the children’s attention at once because its characters are familiar to them; its setting is one that they can quickly see in their imagination. They have much in common with the two children who go to visit the sailor man; they know sailors; they have been to the seashore; they have enjoyed boat rides. And the climax of the story is a lesson in industry. The child who most industriously ties knots in the sailor’s fish nets wins the reward. The second story in the group, “The Stone in the Road,” makes the children think more forcefully than did the first one. It takes them farther afield and makes them see in imagination, wealth, a castle, gold, poverty. They are obliged to reason in interpreting the rich man’s motive in hiding his gold. The story makes the children use their dawning power of judging. The last story selected for this special story group is, “Drakesbill,” a humorous folk tale. The hero, an industrious duck who has worked hard all his life to accumulate a competence upon which he may live in his old age, loans a large sum of money to the king. The king being slow in paying back the money, Drakesbill goes to the palace to collect his debt. His adventures on the way and the successful end of his journey form the interest of the story. This story makes a fine climax to the story group. While it still emphasizes the central thought of the story program, industry, it treats it in a different way from that in which the previous stories illuminate the theme. Its fantasy, its humor make it a relaxation for the children. If story groups are arranged having in mind these two considerations: a central theme and contrast in the treatment of this theme the story hour will be a vital force for good in the development of the children’s mental and moral life. For the benefit of the story teller who has slight time for the consulting of many books of stories which such a planning of story groups entails, some illustrative story programs follow, each of which has been arranged with reference to one child-interest theme carried through three different types of stories. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin. 2018. For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58107/58107-h/58107-h.htm#Page_245 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

For the Story Teller: Chapter 13 - Planning Story Groups 

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey is part of HackerNoon Books Series
. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter XII -
 MAKING OVER STORIES CHAPTER XII. MAKING OVER STORIES THE average story must be cut and fitted to meet the needs of the story teller who wants to make a direct and vivid appeal to her children. Writing a story for the printed page and preparing a story for children’s ears are two very different matters. In the former case, there is no time limit set upon the story; the reader may lay his story book down at will when he tires of the printed words, ready to take it up again when he has the inclination. In the latter case, we have to meet the mental and emotional needs of a group of children whose attention must be held by the compelling power of an orally delivered story. To meet these story needs as applied to oral delivery, a story has, ordinarily, to be made over before it is told. It must be made into a perfectly fitting garment for wrapping the child about with a clinging cloak of imagination, full of colorful words and truth. The story teller must do this story adapting herself. How can she bring it about in the quickest, most effectual way? A large percentage of the stories printed for children are too long. The story that is too short and needs to be “padded” for telling is very rarely to be found. In the case of the Fables of Æsop and Bidpai the skeleton only of each story is given and here the problem of adapting for the story teller is to find a way of filling in each picture in order to make the story of the desired length. But how shall we shorten the too-long story that we want children to hear because of its compelling theme and motif, but which is, very likely, two thousand or twenty-five hundred words long? This is the average difficulty that the story teller meets in connection with the average story. There is also the time problem to be taken into consideration, as well. While the story teller wants to spend as much time as necessary in the preparation of a story, this time ought to be reduced to a minimum. Is there a short cut to story adaptation and how may the story teller find it? One may almost reduce a recipe for making over stories. It is possible to outline a pattern by means of which a printed story may be cut to fit the needs of a group of eager, restless, wriggling children. Having this recipe, this pattern, thoroughly in mind, a little practice in applying it to particular stories that need adapting will give the story teller power to apply it, quickly and effectually to any story with little loss of time. Its use will give the story teller an added power in her work. Knowing how to put stories in shape for telling will help her to hold the attention of any group of children. The first step in our rule for adapting a story that is too long is to carefully read the story. This seems too obvious a suggestion, almost, to put upon a printed page, but reading a story having in mind making it over means reading it to find out what happens in the story, what is its important action, who are its necessary characters, and what is the climax. This first reading of a story for adaptation means an analysis of the story plot. This kind of story reading may be developed so as to become the story teller’s habit in reading any story, but it is the necessary, preliminary step in all story adapting. Our next step is to find the pictures in the story. Suppose you were a stage manager with the problem of dramatizing this special story to meet the interests of an audience, how would you develop the different scenes in the story so as to make it into a play that holds interest? Suppose you are a film maker. What are the moving pictures in the story to be presented in their order of interest through the medium of your film? We have much to learn from the stage manager and the moving picture man. Their problems are identical with those of the story teller in that they must strip a story plot bare of details, unnecessary description and the opinions of the author. They must give an audience the naked story. This is all the audience wants. So it is with children. They demand story scenes, story pictures and nothing else. The third and last step in story adaptation, is to prepare our story pictures for presentation to the children. This step depends a good deal upon the children for whom you are preparing the story. If the children are foreign-born, you will need to put each story picture into a frame of very simple language. If yours are country children, you will need to put country images into the picture canvas. If they are city children, the canvas may need a few fire engines, parks and policemen to catch the children’s attention. These will be, of course, quite subsidiary to the real story interest which must be preserved at all events. It depends, also, upon the person who wrote the story. If we are adapting Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Dickens, Eugene Field or any other master story teller for the special needs of our story group, we must use the utmost care in keeping the form of the author and preserving his marvellous English. Too often the story teller ruins a story in attempting to “tell it down” to children. It is possible to shorten a good story and still keep it the author’s own. It depends, most of all, upon determining the elements of action, dialogue and description necessary to make the story picture a fixture in the child’s mind. Children want to know “what happens” in each scene of the story. This constitutes all their interest. These, to sum up, are our steps in story adaptation: Read the story, analytically. Select its necessary scenes. . Reduce these scenes to elements of action We shall find it helpful to apply these separate steps to some one special story which we wish to present to children and which is too long for our use. There is no more beautiful story in all literature than Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf.” It is full of the sensory appeal, the colorful word picturing, the imagery, the ethics which we look for in a perfect story, but as it stands in the best translation, it is almost three thousand words long and so hedged about with Andersen’s beautiful, but adult philosophy that it is quite beyond the comprehension of children. As a result, it is seldom told to children and is one of the least well-known of the author’s fairy tales. Let us see if we can put it in shape for telling without, in the slightest degree, hurting Andersen’s style. We read the story analytically and find that it divides itself into four scenes, all of which are necessary to preserve the story interest. These are: 1. Inge’s sinning. 2. Inge’s descent to the abode of the Moor Woman. 3. Inge’s repentance and transformation into the bird. 4. The bird’s Christmas work and journey. This analysis strips the story bare of detail. Each of these scenes, in the original story, is elaborated, split up into minor scenes, and they cover a very long period of time, which makes the story difficult for a child to understand. But if we keep carefully in mind these four separate pictures into which the story resolves itself and fill each picture with as little description as possible and only the essential action for carrying children by the quickest possible route to the climax, we find ourselves equipped with a new, shorter story, told in Andersen’s words and ready for retelling to our children. It will be well to compare this adapted version of the story as it appears here with the original story to be found in any translation of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories to determine the omitted description, action and detail. The method of adapting this story is a model for other story adapting. The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf The girl’s name was Inge; she was a poor child, but proud and presumptuous. With years she grew worse rather than better. She was sent into the country, in service, in the house of a rich people who kept her as their own child, and dressed her in corresponding style. She looked well, and her presumption increased. When she had been there about a year, her mistress said to her, “You ought once to visit your parents, Inge. “I’ll make you a present of a great wheaten loaf that you may give to them; they will certainly be glad to see you again.” And Inge put on her best clothes, and her new shoes, and drew her skirts around her, and set out, stepping very carefully that she might be clean and neat about the feet; and there was no harm in that. But when she came to the place where the footway led across the moor, and where there were mud and puddles, she threw the loaf into the mud, and trod upon it to pass over without wetting her feet. But as she stood there with one foot upon the loaf and the other uplifted to step farther, the loaf sank with her, deeper and deeper, till she disappeared altogether, and only a great puddle, from which the bubbles rose, remained where she had been. Whither did Inge go? She sank into the moor ground, and went down to the Moor Woman, who is always brewing there. The Moor Woman is cousin to the Elf Maidens, who are well enough known, of whom songs are sung, and whose pictures are painted; but concerning the Moor Woman it is only known that when the meadows steam in summer-time, it is because she is brewing. Into the Moor Woman’s place did Inge sink down; and no one can endure that place long. A box of mud is a palace compared with the Moor Woman’s brewery. Every barrel there has an odor that almost takes away one’s senses; and the barrels stand close to each other; and wherever there is a little opening among them, through which one might push one’s way, the passage becomes impracticable from the number of damp toads and fat snakes who sit out their time there. Among this company did Inge fall! and she shuddered and became stark and stiff. She continued fastened to the loaf and the loaf drew her down as an amber button draws a fragment of straw. That was a never ending antechamber where Inge found herself. There was a whole crowd of sinful people there, too. Great, fat, waddling spiders spun webs of a thousand years over the people’s feet, webs that cut like wire and bound them like bronze fetters. Inge felt a terrible pain while she had to stand there as a statue, for she was tied fast to the loaf. Her clothes had been soiled with mud in coming down to the Moor Woman’s place; a snake was fastened in her hair and out of each fold in her muddy frock a great toad looked forth, croaking. The worst of all was the terrible hunger that tormented her. But could she not stoop and break off a piece of the loaf on which she stood? No, her back was too stiff, her hands and arms were benumbed, and her whole body was like a pillar of stone; only she was able to turn her eyes in her head, to turn them quite round, so that she could see backwards. “If this lasts much longer,” she said, “I shall not be able to bear it.” But she had to bear it, and it lasted on and on. Her mother and all on earth knew of the sin she had committed; knew that she had trodden upon the loaf, and had sunk and disappeared; for the cowherd had seen it from the hill beside the moor. And then she heard how her story was told to the little children, and the little ones said that she was so naughty and ugly that she must be well punished. But one day when Inge was very hungry, she heard her name mentioned and her story was told to an innocent child. The little girl burst into tears at the tale of the haughty, vain Inge. “But will Inge never come up here again?” asked the little girl. And the reply was, “She will never come up again.” “But if she were to say she was sorry, and to beg pardon, and say she would never do so again?” “Yes, then she might come,” was the reply, and the words penetrated to Inge’s heart and did her good, and a tear of penitence dropped down on the loaf. Again time went on—a long, bitter time, but at last Inge heard some one call her name and she saw two bright stars that seemed gleaming above her. The little girl who had been sorry for Inge was now an old woman and had gone to Heaven. She was calling to Inge. She was still sorry for her. And a wonderful thing happened. A beam of light shot radiantly down into the depths of the Moor Woman’s place with all the force of the sunbeam which melts the snow man the boys have built. More quickly than the snowflake turns to water, the stony form of Inge was changed to mist, and a little bird soared with the speed of lightning upward into the world of men. But the bird was timid and shy towards all things around; he was ashamed of himself, ashamed to encounter any living thing, and hurriedly sought to conceal himself in a dark hole in an old crumbling wall; there he sat cowering, trembling through his whole frame. Then, presently, it was the blessed Christmas time. The peasant who dwelt near set up a pole by the old wall with some ears of corn bound to the top, that the birds of heaven might have a good meal, and rejoice in the happy, blessed time. And on Christmas morning the sun arose and shone upon the ears of corn, which were surrounded by a number of twittering birds. Then out of the hole in the wall streamed forth the voice of another bird, and the bird soared forth from his hiding-place; and in heaven it was well known what bird this was. It was a hard winter. The ponds were covered with ice, and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air were stinted for food. Our little bird soared away over the high road, and in the ruts of the sledges he found here and there a grain of corn, and at the halting-places some crumbs. Of these he ate only a few, but he called all the other hungry sparrows around him, that they, too, might have some food. He flew into the towns, and looked round about; and wherever a kind hand had strewn bread on the window-sill for the birds, he only ate a single crumb himself, and gave all the rest to the other birds. In the course of the winter, the bird had collected so many bread-crumbs, and given them to the other birds, that they equalled the weight of the loaf on which Inge had trod to keep her shoes clean; and when the last bread-crumb had been found and given, the gray wings of the bird became white, and spread far out. “Yonder is a sea-swallow, flying away across the water,” said the children, when they saw the white bird. Now it dived into the sea, and now it rose again into the clear sunlight. It gleamed white; but no one could tell whither it went, though some asserted that it flew straight into the sun. Adapted from Hans Christian Andersen. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin. 2018. For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58107/58107-h/58107-h.htm#Page_231 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

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