short story for kids The Two Goats

The Two Goats

Over a river there was a very narrow bridge. One day a goat was crossing this bridge. Just at the middle of the bridge he met another goat. There was no room for them to pass. Two Goats"Go back," said one goat to the other, "there is no room for both of us".

"Why should I go back?", said the other goat. "Why should not you go back?"

" You must go back", said the first goat, "because I am stronger than you."

"You are not stronger than I", said the second goat.

"We will see about that", said the first goat, and he put down his horns to fight.

"Stop!", said the second goat. " If we fight, we shall both fall into the river and be drowned. Instead I have a plan- I shall lie down, and you may walk over me."

Then the wise goat lay down on the bridge, and the other goat walked lightly over him. So they passed each other, and went on their ways.

short story for kids The Stone Cutter

The Stone Cutter

Once upon a time there lived a stone cutter ,in a small village. All day long he worked hard, cutting the hard stones and making the shape which were needed by his customers. His hands were hard and his clothes were dirty.

One day he went out to work on a big stone. It was very hard to work and the sun was very hot. After spending several hours cutting the stone, he sat down in the shade and soon fell asleep.

After sometime, he heard sound of somebody coming. Walking up he saw a long procession of people. There were many soldiers and attendants and in the middle, in a palanquin, carried by strong people at the king .

How wonderful it must be to be the great king thought the stone cutter . How happy I would be if i were the king instead of a poor stone cutter.

As he said these words, a strange thing happened. The stone cutter found himself dressed in silk clothes and shining jewels. His hands were soft and he was sitting in a comfortable palanquin.

He looked through the curtains and thought, How easy it is to be a king, these people are here to serve me.

The procession moved on and the sun grew hot. The stone cutter ,now the king ,became too warm for comfort. He asked the procession to stop so that he could rest for some time .

At once the chief of the soldiers bent before the king and said Your Majesty, only this morning you swore to have me hanged to death if we did not reach the palace before the sun set.

The stone cutter felt sorry for him and ordered the procession to go on its way again.

As the afternoon wore on, the sun grew hotter, and the king became more and more uncomfortable.

I am powerful, it is true, but how more powerful the sun is, he thought I would rather be the sun than a king .

At once, he became the sun ,shining down on the earth.

His new power was hard to control.

He shone too strongly, he burned up the fields with his rays and turned the ocean into vapour and formed a great cloud which covered the land.

But no matter how hard he shone, he could not see through the clouds.

It is obvious that the clouds are even stronger and more powerful than sun said the stone cutter, now the sun, I would rather be a cloud.

Suddenly he found himself turned into a huge dark cloud.

He started using his new power. He poured rain down on the fields and caused floods. All the trees and houses were swept away but a boulder, which once he had been cutting when he was a stone cutter was unmoved and unchanged.

However much he poured down on the stone it did not move.

Why that rock is more powerful than I am said the stone cutter now a cloud. Only a stone cutter could change the rock by his skill. How I wish I were a stone cutter.

No sooner he said the words that he found himself sitting on a stone with hard and rough hands.

He picked up his tools and set to work on a boulder, happily.

short story for kids The Magic Of Mushkil Gusha

 The Magic Of Mushkil Gusha

Once in the royal city of Isfahan, there was an old woodcutter who lived alone with his young daughter. Every day, the woodcutter went out to the desert to gather camel-thorn bushes, then sold them in the marketplace as firewood. In this way, he earned barely enough for the two of them.
One morning, the woodcutter's daughter said, Father, we always have enough to eat. But just once, it would be nice to have something special. Do you think you could buy us some date cakes?

I think I could do that, my dear, said the woodcutter. I'll just gather some extra wood today.

So the woodcutter walked farther that day to gather more thorn bushes. But he took longer than he meant to.

By the time he got back with the wood, darkness had fallen. It was too late to go to the marketplace. What's more, when he reached his house, he found that his daughter had already bolted the front door and gone to bed.

Knock as he would, there was no answer. So he had to sleep outside on the doorstep.

Next morning, the woodcutter awoke while it was still dark. He told himself, I might as well go out right now and get another big load of wood. Then I can sell twice as much and buy even more date cakes.

So he left his load and went back to the desert to gather more bushes. But again he took longer than he meant to, and when he got back, it was dark and the door was bolted. So again he had to sleep on the doorstep.

He awoke once more before dawn. There's no sense wasting a day, he said. I'll go back out for one more big load. How many date cakes we'll have then!

But yet again he took too long, and yet again the door was bolted when he got back.

The woodcutter sank to the doorstep and wept.

What's wrong, old man?

He looked up to see a dervish in a long green robe and a tall green cap.

Holy sir, for three days I have gone out to gather thorn bushes, and for three days I have come home too late to get into my house. And in all that time, I've had nothing to eat.

What night is this, old man?

The woodcutter said, Why, Friday eve, of course.

That's right. It's the eve of our holy day. And that's the time of Mushkil Gusha.

Mushkil Gusha? said the woodcutter.

That's right, old man -- the 'Remover of Difficulties.'

The holy man took some roasted chickpeas and raisins from his pouch and handed them to the woodcutter. Here, share this with me.

Thank you, sir!

You may not know it, the dervish went on, but Mushkil Gusha is already helping you. If you want your good fortune to continue, here's what you must do: Every Friday eve, find someone in need. Then share what you have, and tell a tale of Mushkil Gusha. That way, you both will be helped.

And with that, the holy man vanished.

As the woodcutter stared at the empty spot, the door to his house swung open.

Father, where have you been? Oh, please come inside! I was so worried!

A few days passed, while the woodcutter and his daughter enjoyed the many date cakes he bought after selling his wood. Then one morning, when the woodcutter had gone to the desert and his daughter had finished her housework, she decided to go walking in a public park.

She was strolling down a broad path when a carriage stopped beside her.

What a pretty little girl! said a royal young lady. I am the daughter of the king. Would you like to be my handmaiden?

Yes, Your Highness, the girl said, blushing.

So the woodcutter's daughter became a handmaiden of the princess. With the gifts the princess gave her, she and her father became quite rich. He bought a nice house, and he didn't have to gather thorn bushes anymore.

But somehow he forgot what the dervish told him.

A month went by. One day, the princess went on a picnic to one of her father's private gardens, and she brought along the woodcutter's daughter. There was a small lake there, so they decided to go for a swim.

The princess took off her necklace and hung it on a branch overlooking the water. But when she came out, she forgot all about it.

A few days later at the palace, the princess looked for the necklace but couldn't find it. She turned angrily to the woodcutter's daughter.

You stole my necklace! You must have taken it when we went for our swim!

No, Your Highness, I wouldn't do that!

You're a thief and a liar too! I'll show you what happens to people of your kind! Get out of my sight!

The woodcutter's daughter ran home in tears. But an hour later, soldiers came to the door. They arrested the woodcutter and carried him off to a public square in front of the prison. Then they locked his feet in the stocks and left him there.

The woodcutter had to suffer the taunts and jeers of the passersby. Some people were kinder, though, and even threw him scraps of food.

Now, that evening was Friday eve. As the sun set, the woodcutter cast his thoughts over all that had happened to him in the past weeks. All at once, he cried out.

Oh, what a foolish, ungrateful wretch I am! Didn't the dervish say to share what I have each Friday eve and tell of Mushkil Gusha? Yet I haven't done it once!

Just then, a packet of chickpeas and raisins landed by the woodcutter. When he looked up, he didn't see who had thrown it. But he did see a beggar boy coming by.

Young friend! called the woodcutter. Please share this with me while I tell you a story.

The boy sat down and gratefully took what was offered. As he ate, the woodcutter related everything that had happened, from when his daughter asked for date cakes, to when he was put in the stocks.

Thank you, sir, said the boy. I needed the food, and the story was good too. I hope it has a happy ending.

The beggar boy went on his way. But he'd only gone a block when a rich merchant stopped him.

My one and only son! Ever since you were stolen at birth, I've looked for that birthmark on your left cheek. Now at last I've found you!

But they leave our story here.

The next day, the princess had another picnic in her father's private garden, and again she went down to the lake for a swim. She was about to step into the water when she saw the reflection of her necklace. She looked up into the tree -- and there was the necklace itself, right where she had left it.

That woodcutter's daughter didn't take it at all!

By the end of the day, the woodcutter was free from the stocks, and his daughter was back in the palace.

And every Friday eve after that, the woodcutter always remembered to find someone in need, share what he had, and tell his tale of Mushkil Gusha.

short story Love & Time

 Love & Time

Once upon a time, in an island there lived all the feelings and emotions : Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to them that the island would sink! So all constructed boats and left. Except for Love.

Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment.

When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help.

Richness was passing by Love in a boat. Love said,
"Richness, can you take me with you?"
Richness answered, "Sorry Love, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat and so there is no place here for you."

Love next asked Vanity who was also sailing by. Vanity was also ready with the same answer.
"I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered.

Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, take me along with you."
"Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself!", sadness said in a sullen voice.

Happiness passed by Love, too, but she was so preoccupied with her happiness that she did not even hear when Love called her.

Suddenly, there was a voice, "Come, Love, I will take you." It was an elder. An overjoyed Love jumped up into the boat and in the process forgot to ask where they were going. When they arrived at a dry land, the elder went her own way.

Realizing how much was owed to the elder, Love asked Knowledge another elder, "Who Helped me?"
"It was Time," Knowledge answered.
"Time?" thought Love. Then, as if reading the face of Love, Knowledge smiled and answered, "Because only Time is capable of understanding how valuable Love is."

short story for kids The Donkey and The Little Dog

The Donkey and The Little Dog

A man had a little dog, and he was very fond of it. He would pat its head, and take it on his knee, and talk to it. Then he would give it little bits of food from his own plate.

A donkey looked in at the window and saw the man and the dog.

"Why does he not make a pet of me?" said the donkey. 

"It is not fair. I work hard, and the dog only wags its tail, and barks, and jumps on its master's knee. It is not fair."

Then the donkey said to himself, "If I do what the dog does, he may make a pet of me."

So the donkey ran into the room. It brayed as loudly as it could. It wagged its tail so hard that it knocked over a jar on the table. Then it tried to jump on to its master's knee.

The master thought the donkey was mad, and he shouted, "Help! Help!" Men came running in with sticks, and they beat the donkey till it ran out of the house, and they drove it back to the field.

"I only did what the dog does," said the donkey," and yet they make a pet of the dog, and they beat me with sticks. It is not fair."

short story for kids High and Lifted Up

High and Lifted Up

It was a windy day.

The mailman barely made it to the front door. When the door opened, Mrs. Pennington said, "hello", but, before she had a real chance to say "thank you", the mail blew out of the mailman's hands, into the house and the front door slammed in his face. Mrs. Pennington ran to pick up the mail.
"Oh my," she said.

Tommy was watching the shutters open and then shut, open and then shut.

"Mom," he said, "may I go outside?"

"Be careful," she said. "It's so windy today."

Tommy crawled down from the window-seat and ran to the door. He opened it with a bang. The wind blew fiercely and snatched the newly recovered mail from Mrs. Pennington's hands and blew it even further into the house.

"Oh my," she said again. Tommy ran outside and the door slammed shut.

Outside, yellow, gold, and red leaves were leaping from swaying trees, landing on the roof, jumping off the roof, and then chasing one another down the street in tiny whirlwinds of merriment.

Tommy watched in fascination.

"If I was a leaf, I would fly clear across the world," Tommy thought and then ran out into the yard among the swirl of colors.
Mrs. Pennington came to the front porch.

"Tommy, I have your jacket. Please put it on."

However, there was no Tommy in the front yard.

"Tommy?"

Tommy was a leaf. He was blowing down the street with the rest of his play-mates.

A maple leaf came close-by, touched him and moved ahead. Tommy met him shortly, brushed against him, and moved further ahead. They swirled around and around, hit cars and poles, flew up into the air and then down again.

"This is fun," Tommy thought.

The maple leaf blew in front of him. It was bright red with well-defined veins. The sun-light shone through it giving it a brilliance never before seen by a little boy's eyes.

"Where do you think we are going?" Tommy asked the leaf.

"Does it matter?" the leaf replied. "Have fun. Life is short."

"I beg to differ," an older leaf said suddenly coming beside them. "The journey may be short, but the end is the beginning."

Tommy pondered this the best a leaf could ponder.

"Where do we end up?"

"If the wind blows you in that direction," the old leaf said, "you will end up in the city dump."

"I don't want that," Tommy said.
"If you are blown in that direction, you will fly high into the air and see things that no leaf has seen before."

"Follow me to the city dump," the maple leaf said. "Most of my friends are there."

The wind blew Tommy and the maple leaf along. Tommy thought of his choices. He wanted to continue to play.

"Okay," Tommy said, "I will go with you to the dump."

The winds shifted and Tommy and the leaf were blown in the direction of the city dump.

The old leaf didn't follow. He was blown further down the block and suddenly lifted up high into the air.

"Hey," he called out, "the sights up here. They are spectacular. Come and see."

Tommy and the maple leaf ignored him.

"I see something. I see the dump." The old leaf cried out. "I see smoke. Come up here. I see fire."

"I see nothing," the maple leaf said.

Tommy saw the fence that surrounded the city dump. He was happy to be with his friend. They would have fun in the dump.

Suddenly, a car pulled up. It was Tommy's mom. Mrs. Pennington wasn't about to let her little boy run into the city dump.

"Not so fast," she said getting out of the car. "You are not allowed to play in there. Don't you see the smoke?"

Tommy watched the maple leaf blow against the wall and struggle to get over. He ran over to get it but was unable to reach it.
Mrs. Pennington walked over and took the leaf. She put it in her pocket.

"There," she said, "it will be safe until we get home."

     Tommy smiled, ran to the car and got in. He rolled down the back window and looked up into the sky. He wondered where the old leaf had gone. Perhaps one day he would see what the old leaf had seen - perhaps.

short story for kids THE SIEGE OF BERLIN

 THE SIEGE OF BERLIN

We were walking up the Avenue des Champs-Élysées with Dr. V, trying to read the story of the siege of Paris in the shell-scarred walls and the sidewalks plowed up by grape-shot. Just before we reached the Circle, the doctor stopped and, pointing out to me one of the big corner houses so pompously grouped around the Arc de Triomphe,told me this story.

You see those four closed windows above the balcony? During the first day of August, that terrible August of last year, so full of storms and disaster, I was called there to attend a very severe case of apoplexy. The patient was Colonel Jouve, once a cuirassier of the First Empire and now an old gentleman mad about glory and patriotism. At the outbreak of war he had gone to live in the Champs-Élysées, in an apartment with a balcony. Can you guess why? That he might be present at the triumphant return of our troops. Poor old boy! The news of Wissemburg reached him just as he was leaving the table. When he read the name of Napoleon at the foot of that bulletin of defeat, he had a stroke and fell.

I found the old cuirassier stretched out on the carpet with his face bleeding and motionless as if struck by a heavy blow. If he had been standing, he would have seemed a tall man. Stretched out as he was, he seemed immense. He had a fine face, magnificent teeth, a thick head of curly white hair, and though eighty years old did not look more than sixty. Near him his granddaughter knelt weeping. There was a strong family resemblance between them. Seeing them side by side, you thought of two beautiful Greek medals struck from the same matrix, but one old and worn and the other bright and clear-cut with all the brilliancy and smoothness of a first impression.

I found the child's grief very touching. Daughter and granddaughter of a soldier (her father was on Mac Mahon's the sight of this splendid old man stretched out before her had suggested to her another scene, no less terrible. I did all I could to reassure her, but in my own mind I was not any too hopeful. There was no question that the stroke had been apoplectic, and that is the sort of thing from which at eighty one does not recover. As it turned out, the sick man remained in a state of coma for three days.

Meanwhile, the news of the battle of Reichshoffen reached Paris. You will remember in what form that news reached us first. Until evening we all believed that we had won a great victory, with 20,000 Prussians killed and the Crown Prince captured. Through some miracle, some magnetic current, an echo of this national rejoicing must have reached the sufferer, deaf and speechless and unable to move though he was. That evening when I went to his bedside, I found a different man. His eye was clear, his tongue was no longer thick, and he had strength enough to smile at me and to stammer, "Vic-to-ry!"

"Yes, Colonel, a great victory!"

And the more details I gave him of Mac Mahon's brilliant success, the more his face relaxed and brightened.

As I left, I found the little girl waiting for me outside the door. She was pale and was crying.

"But he is going to get well," I said, taking her hands in mine.

The poor child had hardly courage to answer me. The true story of the battle of Reichshoffen had just appeared on the bulletin boards. Mac Mahon was retreating and the army cut to pieces. Surprised and shocked, our eyes met, she thinking of her father and I of my patient. Surely he would succumb to this new blow; and yet what could we do? Leave him the joy, the illusion that had brought him back to life? That meant keeping him alive with lies.

"Very well, I will tell them," said the child, and quickly wiping away her tears she went back to her grandfather's room with a smile on her face.
It was not an easy task which she had set herself. For the first few days she had no great difficulty. The old gentleman's head was very weak and he was as easily deceived as a child, but as his strength came back his mind became clearer. He wanted to be kept in touch with troop movements and to have the War Department Bulletin read to him. It was pathetic to see the little girl, night and day, bent over her map of Germany, sticking in pins with little flags on them, and trying hard to invent to the last detail a successful campaign: Bazaine advancing on Berlin, Frossard penetrating Bavaria, and Mac Mahon reaching the Baltic.

To work this all out she needed help, and I helped her as much as I could. But the one who helped her most was her grandfather himself. He had conquered Germany so many times during the First Empire, he knew every move. "This will be the enemy's next move, here," he would say, "and ours will be this." His anticipations were always justified by the event, which made him not a little proud.

Unhappily, no matter how fast we took cities and won battles, we never went fast enough for him. The old fellow was insatiable. Each day as I came in, I learned of some new success.

"Doctor, we have taken Mayence,"said the little girl coming to meet me with a smile that went to your heart, and through the door I heard his glad salutation, "We're getting on! In another week we shall be in Berlin."
At that time the Prussians were only a week's march from Paris. At first we wondered whether we had not better carry our patient into the country. Then we reflected that as soon as he was taken out of the house, he would learn the true state of affairs, and I decided that he was still too feeble, too stunned by his stroke, to let him find out the truth. So we decided to stay where we were.

The first day of the Prussian occupation, I climbed the stairs to his apartment, I remember, with a heavy heart at the thought of all the closed doors of Paris and the fighting going on under her walls, in the suburbs which were now on the frontier. I found the old gentleman sitting up in bed jubilant and proud.
"Well," he said, "the siege has begun."

I looked at him in amazement. "So you know now, Colonel?"

His grandchild turned to me; "Why, yes, doctor. That is the great news to-day. The siege of Berlin has begun."
And while she spoke, she went on with her sewing as calmly as you please. How could he suspect what was happening? He couldn't hear the guns at the fortifications. He couldn't see the city in its fear and sorrow.

From his bed he could see one side of the Arc de Triomphe, and his room was filled with odds and ends of the period of the First Empire—all admirably fitted to sustain his illusions. Portraits of Napoleon's marshals, battle prints, a picture of the little King of Rome in his baby dress; big stiff consoles decorated with trophies, covered with imperial relics, medallions, bronzes, a piece of the rock of St. Helena under a glass case, miniatures all representing the same blue-eyed lady, now with hair curled, now in a ball dress, now in a yellow gown with leg-of-mutton sleeves. And all this—consoles, King of Rome, marshals, yellow-gowned, short-waisted ladies, with that prim stiffness which was considered graceful in 1806, this atmosphere of victory and conquest—it was this more than anything we could say to him that made him accept so naïvely the siege of Berlin.

After that day, our military operations grew simpler and simpler. Nothing but a little patience was needed in order to take Berlin. Every little while, when the old gentleman grew listless, we read him a letter from his son, an imaginary letter of course, as Paris was by now cut off, and as since Sedan, the aide-de-camp of Mac Mahon had been sent to a German fortress.

You can easily imagine the despair of the poor child who heard nothing from her father, knowing that he was a prisoner, deprived of even comfort and perhaps sick, while she had to write letters in his name that were full of joy, brief indeed, such as a soldier would write from the field, a soldier advancing day by day through the enemy's country. Sometimes it was too much for her, and weeks went by without a letter. The old man began to worry and to be unable to sleep. Then presto! a letter from Germany would arrive, and she would read it gayly at her grandfather's bedside, holding back her tears.

The old colonel would listen gravely, smile knowingly, approve, criticize, and explain to us any passage which seemed confused. But it was in the replies that he made to his son that he was magnificent. "Never forget that you are French," he wrote. "Be generous to the poor Germans. Don't let them suffer more than is inevitable from the invasion of their country." And then came suggestions without end, charming, moralizing on property rights, the courtesy due to women, a veritable code of honor for conquerors. All this was interwoven with reflections on politics and discussions of the peace terms. On this last point he was not unduly exacting. "Indemnity, and nothing more—what good would their provinces be to us? A France could never be made out of a Germany." He dictated that in a firm voice, and one could not hear him without emotion, there was so much sincerity, so beautiful a patriotism in what he said.

Meanwhile, the siege was progressing—not the siege of Berlin, unfortunately! We had reached the period of severe cold, the bombardment, the epidemics, the famine. But thanks to our efforts, to the infinite tenderness which enfolded him, the serenity of the old old man was never troubled. To the end, I was able to get white bread and fresh meat for him—for him alone, of course. You can't imagine anything more touching than these luncheons so innocent in their egotism—the old gentleman sitting up in bed, fresh and smiling, his napkin tucked under his chin, and his pale little granddaughter at hand to guide his hand, make him drink, and help him as he ate all these forbidden good things.
Then, animated by his meal, in the comfort of his warm room, while the winter's wind whistled outside and the snow flakes whirled around the windows, the ex-cuirassier told us for the hundredth time the story of the retreat from Russia when frozen biscuit and horse flesh was all that there was to eat.
"Do you realize what that means, little one? We had to eat horse!"

Did she realize what that meant! For two months she had eaten no other meat.

As time went on and the old gentleman recovered little by little, our task increased in difficulty. The numbness of the senses which had made it so easy to deceive him was disappearing day by day. Two or three times already the terrible cannonading at the Porte Maillot had made him jump, his ear as keen as a hunting dog's, and we had been obliged to invent a last victory for Bazaine at the gates of Berlin and salvos fired at the Invalides in honor of the event.

Another day, when his bed had been brought over to the window (it was, I think, the Thursday on which the battle of Buzenval was fought), he distinctly saw the troops of the National Guard formed on the Avenue de la Grand Armé.

"What are those troops?" asked the old gentleman, and we heard him mutter, "Not well set up."

It went no farther, but we understood that thereafter we must take every precaution. Unfortunately we were not sufficiently careful. One evening as I reached the house, the little girl came to meet me, considerably troubled. "It is to-morrow that they enter the city," she said.

Was the door of her grandfather's bedroom open? In thinking it all over afterward, I remember that this evening his face wore a very striking expression. Probably he had overheard us; but while we were talking of the entry of the Prussians, the old gentleman was thinking of the triumphant return of the French troops, for which he had so long been waiting—Mac Mahon marching down the avenue in the midst of flowers, his son at the marshal's side, and he himself on his balcony wearing his full dress uniform as he did at Lutzen, saluting the riddled flags and the powder-blackened eagles.

Poor old Jouve! No doubt he thought that we did not want him to participate in this review of our troops in the fear that his emotion would be too much for him, so he carefully avoided speaking of it. But the next day, at the very minute when the Prussian battalions started on their march from the Porte Maillot to the Tuileries,the window up there opened gently and the Colonel appeared on the balcony wearing his helmet, his saber and all the old-fashioned but still glorious regalia of one of Milhaud's cuirassiers.

I still wonder what will power, what spurt of vitality it had taken to put him on his feet again in all the trappings of war. At all events, there he was, standing erect behind the rail, surprised to find the avenues so large, so silent, the window curtains down, and Paris as gloomy as a great pesthouse; flags everywhere, but such strange flags bearing a red cross on a white field, and no crowd to meet our soldiers.

For an instant he thought he might be mistaken; but no, below, behind the Arc de Triomphe, there came an indistinct rattle and then a black line advanced in the early light. Then, little by little, the eagles on the tops of helmets could be seen shining in the sun, the little drums of Jena began to beat, and under the Arc de L'Etoile, accented by the heavy tread of marching men and by the clash of sidearms, Schubert's Triumphal March burst out.


Suddenly the silence of the Place de L'Etoile was broken by a terrible cry: "To arms! To arms! The Prussians!" And the four Uhlansat the head of the column could see up there on the balcony a tall old man stagger and fall. This time Colonel Jouve was really dead.

short story for kids Friends

 Friends

My mamma," reported Morris Mowgelewsky, choosing a quiet moment during a writing period to engage his teacher's attention, "my mamma likes you shall come on mine house for see her."

"Very well, dear," answered Miss Bailey with a patience born of many such messages from the parents of her small charges. "I think I shall have time to go this afternoon."

"My mamma," Morris began again, "she says I shall tell you 'scuse how she don't send you no letter. She couldn't to send no letter the while her eyes ain't healthy." "I am sorry to hear that," said Teacher, with a little stab of regret for her prompt acceptance of Mrs. Mowgelewsky's invitation; for of all the ailments which the children shared so generously with their teacher, Miss Bailey had learned to dread most the many and painful disorders of the eye. She knew, however, that Mrs. Mowgelewsky was not one of those who utter unnecessary cries for help, being in this regard, as in many others, a striking contrast to the majority of parents with whom Miss Bailey came in contact.

To begin with, Mrs. Mowgelewsky had but one child—her precious, only Morris. In addition to this singularity she was thrifty and neat, intensely self-respecting and independent of spirit, and astonishingly outspoken of mind. She neither shared nor understood the gregarious spirit which bound her neighbors together and is the lubricant which makes East Side crowding possible without bloodshed. No groups of chattering, gesticulating matrons ever congregated in her Monroe Street apartment. No love of gossip ever held her on street corners or on steps. She nourished few friendships and fewer acquaintanceships, and she welcomed no haphazard visitor. Her hospitalities were as serious as her manner; her invitations as deliberate as her slow English speech. And Miss Bailey, as she and the First Readers followed the order of studies laid down for them, found herself again and again, trying to imagine what the days would be to Mrs. Mowgelewsky if her keen, shrewd eyes were to be darkened and useless.

At three o'clock she set out with Morris, leaving the Board of Monitors[78-1] to set Room 18 to rights with no more direct supervision than an occasional look and word from the stout Miss Blake, whose kingdom lay just across the hall. And as she hurried through the early cold of a November afternoon, her forebodings grew so lugubrious that she was almost relieved at last to learn that Mrs. Mowgelewsky's complaint was a slow-forming cataract, and her supplication, that Miss Bailey would keep a watchful eye upon Morris while his mother was at the hospital undergoing treatment and operation.

"But of course," Miss Bailey agreed, "I shall be delighted to do what I can, Mrs. Mowgelewsky, though it seems to me that one of the neighbors——" "Neighbors!" snorted the matron; "What you think the neighbors make mit mine little boy? They got four, five dozens childrens theirselves. They ain't got no time for look on Morris. They come maybe in mine house und break mine dishes, und rubber on what is here, und set by mine furniture und talks. What do they know over takin' care on mine house? They ain't ladies. They is educated only on the front. Me, I was raised private und expensive in Russia; I was ladies. Und you ist ladies. You ist Krisht[79-1]—that is too bad—but that makes me nothings. I wants you shall look on Morris."

"But I can't come here and take care of him," Miss Bailey pointed out. "You see that for yourself, don't you, Mrs. Mowgelewsky? I am sorry as I can be about your eyes, and I hope with all my heart that the operation will be successful. But I shouldn't have time to come here and take care of things." "That ain't how mine mamma means," Morris explained. He was leaning against Teacher and stroking her muff as he spoke. "Mine mamma means the money." "That ist what I means," said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, nodding her ponderous head until her quite incredible wig slipped back and forth upon it. "Morris needs he shall have money. He could to fix the house so good like I can. He don't needs no neighbors rubberin'. He could to buy what he needs on the store. But ten cents a day he needs. His papa works by Harlem. He is got fine jobs, und he gets fine moneys, but he couldn't to come down here for take care of Morris. Und the doctor he says I shall go now on the hospital. Und any way," she added sadly, "I ain't no good; I couldn't to see things. He says I shall lay in the hospital three weeks, may be—that is twenty-one days—und for Morris it is two dollars und ten cents. I got the money." And she fumbled for her purse in various hiding-places about her ample person.

"And you want me to be banker," cried Miss Bailey; "to keep the money and give Morris ten cents a day—is that it?"

"Sure," answered Mrs. Mowgelewsky.

"It's a awful lot of money," grieved Morris. "Ten cents a day is a awful lot of money for one boy."

"No, no, my golden one," cried his mother. "It is but right that thou shouldst have plenty of money, und thy teacher, a Christian lady, though honest—und what neighbor is honest?—will give thee ten cents every morning. Behold, I pay the rent before I go, und with the rent paid und with ten cents a day thou wilt live like a landlord." "Yes, yes," Morris broke in, evidently repeating some familiar warning, "und every day I will say mine prayers und wash me the face, und keep the neighbors out, und on Thursdays und on Sundays I shall go on the hospital for see you."

"And on Saturdays," broke in Miss Bailey, "you will come to my house and spend the day with me. He's too little, Mrs. Mowgelewsky, to go to the synagogue alone." "That could be awful nice," breathed Morris. "I likes I shall go on your house. I am lovin' much mit your dog."

"How?" snorted his mother. "Dogs! Dogs ain't nothing but foolishness. They eats something fierce, und they don't works."

"That iss how mine mamma thinks," Morris hastened to explain, lest the sensitive feelings of his Lady Paramount should suffer. "But mine mamma she never seen yourdog. He iss a awful nice dog; I am lovin' much mit him."

"I don't needs I shall see him," said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, somewhat tartly. "I seen, already, lots from dogs. Don't you go make no foolishness mit him. Don't you go und get chawed off of him." "Of course, of course not," Miss Bailey hastened to assure her; "he will only play with Rover if I should be busy or unable to take him out with me. He'll be safer at my house than he would be on the streets, and you wouldn't expect him to stay in the house all day."

After more parley and many warnings the arrangement was completed. Miss Bailey was intrusted with two dollars and ten cents, and the censorship of Morris. A day or so later Mrs. Mowgelewsky retired, indomitable, to her darkened room in the hospital, and the neighbors were inexorably shut out of her apartment. All their offers of help, all their proffers of advice were politely refused by Morris, all their questions and visits politely dodged. And every morning Miss Bailey handed her Monitor of the Goldfish Bowl his princely stipend, adding to it from time to time some fruit or other uncontaminated food, for Morris was religiously the strictest of the strict, and could have given cards and spades to many a minor rabbi[82-1] on the intricacies of Kosher law.

The Saturday after his mother's departure Morris spent in the enlivening companionship of the antiquated Rover, a collie who no longer roved farther than his own back yard, and who accepted Morris's frank admiration with a noble condescension and a few rheumatic gambols. Miss Bailey's mother was also hospitable, and her sister did what she could to amuse the quaint little child with the big eyes, the soft voice, and the pretty foreign manners. But Morris preferred Rover to any of them, except perhaps the cook, who allowed him to prepare a luncheon for himself after his own little rites.

Everything had seemed so pleasant and so successful that Miss Bailey looked upon a repetition of this visit as a matter of course, and was greatly surprised on the succeeding Friday afternoon when the Monitor of the Goldfish Bowl said that he intended to spend the next day at home.

"Oh, no!" she remonstrated, "you mustn't stay at home. I'm going to take you out to the Park and we are going to have all kinds of fun. Wouldn't you rather go and see the lions and the elephants with me than stay at home all by yourself?"

For some space Morris was a prey to silence, then he managed by a consuming effort:

"I ain't by mineself."

"Has your father come home?" said Teacher.

"No, ma'am."

"And surely it's not a neighbor. You remember what your mother said about the neighbors, how you were not to let them in."

"It ain't neighbors," said Morris.

"Then who——?" began Miss Bailey.

Morris raised his eyes to hers, his beautiful, black, pleading eyes, praying for the understanding and the sympathy which had never failed him yet. "It's a friend," he answered. "Nathan Spiderwitz?" she asked.

Morris shook his head, and gave Teacher to understand that the Monitor of the Window Boxes came under the ban of neighbor.

"Well, who is it, dearest?" she asked again. "Is it any one that I know?"
"No, ma'am."

"None of the boys in the school?"

"No, ma'am." "Have you known him long?" "No, ma'am." "Does your mother know him?"

"Oh, Teacher, no, ma'am! Mine mamma don't know him."

"Well, where did you meet him?"

"Teacher, on the curb. Over yesterday on the night," Morris began, seeing that explanation was inevitable, "I lays on mine bed, und I thinks how mine mamma has got a sickness, und how mine papa is by Harlem, und how I ain't got nobody beside of me. Und, Teacher, it makes me cold in mine heart. So I couldn't to lay no more, so I puts me on mit mine clothes some more, und I goes by the street, the while peoples is there, und I needs I shall see peoples. So I sets by the curb, und mine heart it go und it go so I couldn't to feel how it go in mine inside. Und I thinks on my mamma, how I seen her mit bandages on the face, und mine heart it goes some more. Und, Teacher, Missis Bailey, I cries over it."

"Of course you did, honey," said Teacher, putting her arm about him. "Poor, little, lonely chap! Of course you cried."

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am; it ain't fer boys they shall cry, but I cries over it. Und soon something touches me by mine side, und I turns und mine friend he was sittin' by side of me. Und he don't say nothings, Teacher; no, ma'am; he don't say nothings, only he looks on me, und in his eyes stands tears. So that makes me better in mine heart, und I don't cries no more. I sets und looks on mine friend, und mine friend he sets und looks on me mit smilin' looks. So I goes by mine house, und mine friend he comes by mine house, too, und I lays by mine bed, und mine friend he lays by mine side. Und all times in that night sooner I open mine eyes und thinks on how mine mamma is got a sickness, und mine papa is by Harlem, mine friend he is by mine side, und I don't cries. I don't cries never no more the whiles mine friend is by me. Und I couldn't to go on your house to-morrow the whiles I don't know if mine friend likes Rover."

"Of course he'd like him," cried Miss Bailey. "Rover would play with him just as he plays with you."

"No, ma'am," Morris maintained; "mine friend is too little for play mit Rover."

"Is he such a little fellow?"

"Yiss, ma'am; awful little."

"And has he been with you ever since the day before yesterday?"

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am."

"Does he seem to be happy and all right?"

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am."

"But," asked Miss Bailey, suddenly practical, "what does the poor little fellow eat? Of course ten cents would buy a lot of food for one boy, but not so very much for two."

"Teacher, no, ma'am," says Morris; "it ain't so very much."

"Well, then," said Miss Bailey, "suppose I give you twenty cents a day as long as a little strange friend is with you."

"That could to be awful nice," Morris agreed; "und, Missis Bailey," he went on, "sooner you don't needs all yours lunch mine friend could eat it, maybe."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she cried; "It's ham to-day."

"That don't make nothins mit mine friend," said Morris, "he likes ham."

"Now, Morris," said Miss Bailey very gravely, as all the meanings of this announcement spread themselves before her, "this is a very serious thing. You know how your mother feels about strangers, and you know how she feels about Christians, and what will she say to you—and what will she say to me—when she hears that a strange little Christian is living with you? Of course, dearie, I know it's nice for you to have company, and I know that you must be dreadfully lonely in the long evenings, but I'm afraid your mother will not be pleased to think of your having somebody to stay with you. Wouldn't you rather come to my house and live there all the time until your mother is better. You know," she added as a crowning inducement, "Rover is there." But Morris betrayed no enthusiasm. "I guess," said he, "I ain't lovin' so awful much mit Rover. He iss too big. I am likin' little dogs mit brown eyes, what walks by their legs und carries things by their mouths. Did you ever see dogs like that?"

"In the circus," answered Teacher. "Where did you see them?"

"A boy by our block," answered Morris, "is got one. He is lovin' much mit that dog und that dog is lovin' much mit him."

"Well, now, perhaps you could teach Rover to walk on his hind legs, and carry things in his mouth," suggested Teacher; "and as for this new little Christian friend of yours——"

"I don't know be he a Krisht," Morris admitted with reluctant candor; "he ain't said nothin' over it to me. On'y a Irisher lady what lives by our house, she says mine friend is a Irisher."

"Very well, dear; then of course he's a Christian," Miss Bailey assured him, "and I shan't interfere with you to-morrow—you may stay at home and play with him. But we can't let it go on, you know. This kind of thing never would do when your mother comes back from the hospital. She might not want your friend in the house. Have you thought of that at all, Morris? You must make your friend understand it."

"I tells him," Morris promised; "I don't know can he understand. He's pretty little, only that's how I tells him all times."

"Then tell him once again, honey," Miss Bailey advised, "and make him understand that he must go back to his own people as soon as your mother is well. Where are his own people? I can't understand how any one so little could be wandering about with no one to take care of him."

"Teacher, I'm takin' care of him," Morris pointed out.

All that night and all the succeeding day Miss Bailey's imagination reverted again and again to the two little ones keeping house in Mrs. Mowgelewsky's immaculate apartment. Even increasing blindness had not been allowed to interfere with sweeping and scrubbing and dusting, and when Teacher thought of that patient matron, as she lay in her hospital cot trusting so securely to her Christian friend's guardianship of her son and home, she fretted herself into feeling that it was her duty to go down to Monroe Street and investigate. There was at first no sound when, after climbing endless stairs, she came to Mrs. Mowgelewsky's door. But as the thumping of the heart and the singing in her ears abated somewhat, she detected Morris's familiar treble.

"Bread," it said, "iss awful healthy for you, only you dasn't eat it 'out chewin'. I never in my world seen how you eats."

Although the words were admonitory, they lost all didactic effect by the wealth of love and tenderness which sang in the voice. There was a note of happiness in it, too, a throb of pure enjoyment quite foreign to Teacher's knowledge of this sad-eyed little charge of hers. She rested against the door frame, and Morris went on:"I guess you don't know what iss polite. You shall better come on the school, und Miss Bailey could to learn you what iss polite and healthy fer you. No, you couldn't to have no meat. No, sir! No, ma'am! You couldn't to have no meat 'till I cuts it fer you. You could to, maybe, make yourself a sickness und a bashfulness."

Miss Bailey put her hand on the door and it yielded noiselessly to her touch, and revealed to her guardian eyes her ward and his little friend. They were seated vis-a-vis[89-1] at the table; everything was very neat and clean and most properly set out. A little lamp was burning clearly. Morris's hair was parted for about an inch back from his forehead and sleeked wetly down upon his brow. The guest had evidently undergone similar preparation for the meal. Each had a napkin tied around his neck, and as Teacher watched them, Morris carefully prepared his guest's dinner, while the guest, an Irish terrier, with quick eyes and one down-flopped ear, accepted his admonishings with a good-natured grace, and watched him with an adoring and confiding eye. The guest was first to detect the stranger's presence. He seized a piece of bread in his teeth, jumped to the ground, and walking up to Teacher on his hind legs, hospitably dropped the refreshment at her feet.

"Oh! Teacher! Teacher!" cried Morris, half in dismay at discovery, and half in joy that this so sure confidant should share his secret and appreciate his friend. "Oh! Teacher! Missis Bailey! this is the friend what I was telling you over. See how he walks on his feet! See how he has got smilin' looks! See how he carries somethings by his teeth! All times he makes like that. Rover, he don't carries nothin's, und gold fishes, they ain't got no feet even. On'y Izzie could to make them things."

"Oh, is his name Izzie?" asked Miss Bailey, grasping at this conversational straw and shaking the paw which the stranger was presenting to her. "And this is the friend you told me about? You let me think," she chided, with as much severity as Morris had shown to his Izzie, "that he was a boy."

"I had a 'fraid," said the Monitor of the Gold Fish Bowl frankly.

So had Teacher as she reviewed the situation from Mrs. Mowgelewsky's chair of state, and watched the friends at supper. It was a revelation of solicitude on one side, and patient gratitude on the other. Morris ate hardly anything, and was soon at Teacher's knee—Izzie was in her lap—discussing ways and means.
He refused to entertain any plan which would separate him immediately from Izzie, but he was at last brought to see the sweet reasonableness of preparing his mother's mind by degrees to accept another member to the family.

"Und he eats," his protector was forced to admit—"he eats somethin' fierce, Missis Bailey; as much like a man he eats. Und my mamma, I don't know what she will say. She won't leave me I shall keep him; from long I had a little bit of a dog, und she wouldn't to leave me I should keep him, und he didn't eat so much like Izzie eats, neither."
"And I can't very well keep him," said Miss Bailey sadly, "because, you see, there is Rover. Rover mightn't like it. But there is one thing I can do: I'll keep him for a few days when your mother comes back, and then we'll see, you and I, if we can persuade her to let you have him always."

"She wouldn't never to do it," said Morris sadly. "That other dog, didn't I told you how he didn't eat so much like Izzie, and she wouldn't to let me have him? That's a cinch." "Oh! don't say that word, dear," cried Teacher. "And we can only try. We'll do our very, very best."

This guilty secret had a very dampening effect upon the joy with which Morris watched for his mother's recovery. Upon the day set for her return, he was a miserable battle-field of love and duty. Early in the morning Izzie had been transferred to Miss Bailey's yard. Rover was chained to his house, Izzie was tied to the wall at a safe distance from him, and they proceeded to make the day hideous for the whole neighborhood.

Morris remained at home to greet his mother, received her encomiums, cooked the dinner, and set out for afternoon school with a heavy heart and a heavier conscience. Nothing had occurred in those first hours to show any change in Mrs. Mowgelewsky's opinion of home pets; rather she seemed, in contrast to the mild and sympathetic Miss Bailey, more than ever dictatorial and dogmatic.

At a quarter after three, the gold fish having received perfunctory attention, and the Board of Monitors being left again to do their worst, unguarded, Morris and Teacher set out to prepare Mrs. Mowgelewsky's mind for the adoption of Izzie. They found it very difficult. Mrs. Mowgelewsky, restored of vision, was so hospitable, so festive in her elephantine manner, so loquacious and so self-congratulatory, that it was difficult to insert even the tiniest conversational wedge into the structure of her monologue.

Finally Miss Bailey managed to catch her attention upon financial matters. "You gave me," she said, "two dollars and ten cents, and Morris has managed so beautifully that he has not used it all, and has five cents to return to you. He's a very wonderful little boy, Mrs. Mowgelewsky," she added, smiling at her favorite to give him courage. "He iss a good boy," Mrs. Mowgelewsky admitted. "Don't you get lonesome sometimes by yourself here, huh?"
"Well," said Miss Bailey, "he wasn't always alone."
"No?" queried the matron with a divided attention. She was looking for her purse, in which she wished to stow Morris's surplus.
"No," said Teacher; "I was here once or twice. And then a little friend of his——"
"Friend," the mother repeated with a glare; "was friends here in mine house?"
Miss Bailey began a purposely vague reply, but Mrs. Mowgelewsky was not listening to her. She had searched the pockets of the gown she wore, then various other hiding-places in the region of its waist line, then a large bag of mattress covering which she wore under her skirt. Ever hurriedly and more hurriedly she repeated this performance two or three times, and then proceeded to shake and wring the out-door clothing which she had worn that morning.

"Gott!" she broke out at last, "mine Gott! mine Gott! it don't stands." And she began to peer about the floor with eyes not yet quite adjusted. Morris easily recognized the symptoms. "She's lost her pocket-book," he told Miss Bailey.

"Yes, I lost it," wailed Mrs. Mowgelewsky, and then the whole party participated in the search. Over and under the furniture, the carpets, the bed, the stove, over and under everything in the apartment went Mrs. Mowgelewsky and Morris. All the joy of home-coming and of well-being was darkened and blotted out by this new calamity. And Mrs. Mowgelewsky beat her breast and tore her hair, and Constance Bailey almost wept in sympathy. But the pocket-book was gone, absolutely gone, though Mrs. Mowgelewsky called Heaven and earth to witness that she had had it in her hand when she came in.

Another month's rent was due; the money to pay it was in the pocket-book. Mr. Mowgelewsky had visited his wife on Sunday, and had given her all his earnings as some salve to the pain of her eyes. Eviction, starvation, every kind of terror and disaster were thrown into Mrs. Mowgelewsky's wailing, and Morris proved an able second to his mother.

Miss Bailey was doing frantic bookkeeping in her charitable mind, and was wondering how much of the loss she might replace. She was about to suggest as a last resort that a search should be made of the dark and crannied stairs, where a purse, if the Fates were very, very kind, might lie undiscovered for hours, when a dull scratching made itself heard through the general lamentation. It came from a point far down on the panel of the door, and the same horrible conviction seized upon Morris and upon Miss Bailey at the same moment.

Mrs. Mowgelewsky in her frantic round had approached the door for the one-hundredth time, and with eyes and mind far removed from what she was doing, she turned the handle. And entered Izzie, beautifully erect upon his hind legs, with a yard or two of rope trailing behind him, and a pocket-book fast in his teeth.

Blank, pure surprise took Mrs. Mowgelewsky for its own. She staggered back into a chair, fortunately of heavy architecture, and stared at the apparition before her. Izzie came daintily in, sniffed at Morris, sniffed at Miss Bailey, sniffed at Mrs. Mowgelewsky's ample skirts, identified her as the owner of the pocket-book, laid it at her feet, and extended a paw to be shaken. "Mine Gott!" said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, "what for a dog iss that?" She counted her wealth, shook Izzie's paw, and then stooped forward, gathered him into her large embrace, and cried like a baby. "Mine Gott! Mine Gott!" she wailed again, and although she spent five minutes in apparent effort to evolve another and more suitable remark, her research met with no greater success than the addition:

"He ain't a dog at all; he iss friends."

Miss Bailey had been sent to an eminently good college, and had been instructed long and hard in psychology, so that she knew the psychologic moment when she met it. She now arose with congratulations and farewells. Mrs. Mowgelewsky arose also with Izzie still in her arms. She lavished endearments upon him and caresses upon his short black nose, and Izzie received them all with enthusiastic gratitude.

"And I think," said Miss Bailey in parting, "that you had better let that dog come with me. He seems a nice enough little thing, quiet, gentle, and very intelligent. He can live in the yard with Rover."

Morris turned his large eyes from one to another of his rulers, and Izzie, also good at psychologic moments, stretched out a pointed pink tongue and licked Mrs. Mowgelewsky's cheek. "This dog," said that lady majestically, "iss mine. Nobody couldn't never to have him. When I was in mine trouble, was it mans or was it ladies what takes und gives me mine money back? No! Was it neighbors? No! Was it you, Miss Teacher, mine friend? No! It was that dog. Here he stays mit me. Morris, my golden one, you wouldn't to have no feelin's 'bout mamma havin' dogs? You wouldn't to have mads?"

"No, ma'am," responded her obedient son; "Missis Bailey she says it's fer boys they should make all things what is lovin' mit cats und dogs und horses." "Goot," said his mother; "I guess, maybe, that ain't such a foolishness."

It was not until nearly bedtime that Mrs. Mowgelewsky reverted to that part of Miss Bailey's conversation immediately preceding the discovery of the loss of the purse.

"So-o-oh, my golden one," she began, lying back in her chair with Izzie on her lap—"so-o-oh, you had friends by the house when mamma was by hospital." "On'y one," Morris answered faintly.

"Well, I ain't scoldin'," said his mother. "Where iss your friend? I likes I shall look on him. Ain't he comin' round to-night?"

"No ma'am," answered Morris, settling himself at her side, and laying his head close to his friend. "He couldn't to go out by nights the while he gets adopted off of a lady."

short story for kids The Fox and the Crow

The Fox and the Crow

A Fox once saw a Crow fly off with a piece of cheese in its beak and settle on a branch of a tree. "That's for me, as I am a Fox," said Master Reynard, and he walked up to the foot of the tree. "Good-day, Mistress Crow," he cried. "How well you are looking to-day: how glossy your feathers; how bright your eye. I feel sure your voice must surpass that of other birds, just as your figure does; let me hear but one song from you that I may greet you as the Queen of Birds." 

The Crow lifted up her head and began to caw her best, but the moment she opened her mouth the piece of cheese fell to the ground, only to be snapped up by Master Fox. "That will do," said he. "That was all I wanted. In exchange for your cheese I will give you a piece of advice for the future:

"Do not trust flatterers."

 

short story for kids The Little Red Hen

The Little Red Hen

The little Red Hen was in the farmyard with her chickens, when she found a grain of wheat.

 

"Who will plant this wheat?" she said.

 

"Not I," said the Goose.

 

"Not I," said the Duck.

 

"I will, then," said the little Red Hen, and she planted the grain of wheat.

 

When the wheat was ripe she said, "Who will take this wheat to the mill?"

 

"Not I," said the Goose.

 

"Not I," said the Duck.

 

"I will, then," said the little Red Hen, and she took the wheat to the mill.

 

When she brought the flour home she said, "Who will make some bread with this flour?"

 

"Not I," said the Goose.

 

"Not I," said the Duck.

 

"I will, then," said the little Red Hen.

 

When the bread was baked, she said, "Who will eat this bread?"

 

"I will," said the Goose

 

"I will," said the Duck

 

"No, you won't," said the little Red Hen. "I shall eat it myself.  Cluck! cluck!"  And she called her chickens to help her.

  

short story for kids The City Mouse and The Country Mouse

 The City Mouse  and The Country Mouse

Once a little mouse who lived in the country invited a little Mouse from the city to visit him.  When the little City Mouse  sat down to dinner he was surprised to find that the Country Mouse had nothing to eat except barley and grain.

"Really," he said, "you do not live well at all; you should see how I live!  I have all sorts of fine things to eat every day.  You must come to visit me and see how nice it is to live in the city."
  
The little Country Mouse was glad to do this, and after a while he went to the city to visit his friend.  

The very first place that the City Mouse took the Country Mouse to see was the kitchen cupboard of the house where he lived.  There, on the lowest shelf, behind some stone jars, stood a big paper bag of brown sugar.  The little City Mouse gnawed a hole in the bag and invited his friend to nibble for himself.  

The two little mice nibbled and nibbled, and the Country Mouse thought he had never tasted anything so delicious in his life.  He was just thinking how lucky the City Mouse was, when suddenly the door opened with a bang, and in came the cook to get some flour.

"Run!" whispered the City Mouse. And they ran as fast as they could to the little hole where they had come in.  The little Country Mouse was shaking all over when they got safely away, but the little City Mouse said, "That is nothing; she will soon go away and then we can go back."

After the cook had gone away and shut the door they stole softly back, and this time the City Mouse had something new to show: he took the little Country Mouse into a corner on the top shelf, where a big jar of dried prunes stood open.  After much tugging and pulling they got a large dried prune out of the jar on to the shelf and began to nibble at it.  This was even better than the brown sugar.  The little Country Mouse liked the taste so much that he could hardly nibble fast enough. But all at once, in the midst of their eating, there came a scratching at the door and a sharp, loud MIAOUW!  

"What is that?" said the Country Mouse.  The City Mouse just whispered, "Sh!" and ran as fast as he could to the hole.  

The Country Mouse ran after, you may be sure, as fast as HE could.  As soon as they were out of danger the City Mouse  said, "That was the old Cat; she is the best mouser in town,--if she once gets you, you are lost."   

"This is very terrible," said the little Country Mouse; "let us not go back to the cupboard again."

"No," said the City Mouse, "I will take you to the cellar; there is something especial there."

So the City Mouse took his little friend down the cellar stairs and into a big cupboard where there were many shelves.  On the shelves were jars of butter, and cheeses in bags and out of bags.  Overhead hung bunches of sausages, and there were spicy apples in barrels standing about.  It smelled so good that it went to the little Country Mouse's head.  He ran along the shelf and nibbled at a cheese here, and a bit of butter there, until he saw an especially rich, very delicious-smelling piece of cheese on a queer little stand in a corner. He was just on the point of putting his teeth into the cheese when the City Mouse saw him.  


"Stop! stop!" cried the City Mouse. "That is a trap!"

The little Country Mouse stopped and said, "What is a trap?"

"That thing is a trap," said the little City Mouse.  "The minute you touch the cheese with your teeth something comes down on your head hard, and you're dead."  

The little Country Mouse looked at the trap, and he looked at the cheese, and he looked at the little City Mouse.  "If you'll excuse me," he said, "I think I will go home.  I'd rather have barley and grain to eat and eat it in peace and comfort, than have brown sugar and dried prunes and cheese,--and be frightened to death all the time!"  


So the little Country Mouse went back to his home, and there he stayed all the rest of his life.