"
Occasionally, to be sure, the children insist upon books being easy to
read, and refuse to find "lovely talk" in them if they are not. It was
only a short time ago that I read to a little boy Browning's "Pied Piper
of Hamelin." When I had finished there was a silence. "Do you like it?"
I inquired.
"Ye-es," replied my small friend; "it's a nice story, but it's nicer in
my book than in yours. I'll bring it next time I come, so you can read
it."
He did. The story was told in prose. It began, "There was once a town,
named Hamelin, and there were so many rats in it that the people did not
know what to do." Certainly this is "easier to read" than the forty-two
lines which the poem uses to make an identical statement regarding the
town named Hamelin. My little friend is only six. I hope that by the
time he is twelve he will think the poem is as "nice" as, if not "nicer"
than, the story in his book. At least he may be impelled by the memory
of his pleasure in his book to turn to my book and compare the two
versions of the tale.
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