How To Tell Children Stories, page 100 by Sara Cone Bryant
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s a child stood, weeping and naked. "I am cold," she said, "give me your little shirt!" And the little girl thought, "It is dark, and the woods will shelter me; I will give her my little shirt"; so she did, and now she had nothing left in all the world.
She stood looking up at the sky, to say her night-time prayer. As she looked up, the whole skyful of stars fell in a shower round her feet. There they were, on the ground, shining bright, and round. The little girl saw that they were silver dollars. And in the midst of them was the finest little shirt, all woven out of silk! The little girl put on the little silk shirt, and gathered the star dollars; and she was rich, all the days of her life.
THE LION AND THE GNAT[1]
[1] This story has been told by the Rev. Albert E. Sims to children in many parts of England. On one occasion it was told to an audience of over three thousand children in the Great Assembly Hall, Mile End, London.
Far away in Central Africa, that vast land where dense forests and wild beasts abound, the shades of night were once more descending, warning all creatures that it was time to seek repose.
All day long the sun had been like a great burning eye, but now, after painting the western sky with crimson and scarlet and gold, he had disappeared into his fleecy bed; the various creatures of the forest had sought their holes and resting-places; the last sound had rumbled its rumble, the last bee had mumbled his mumble, and the last bear had grumbled his grumble; even the grasshoppers that had been chirruping, chirruping, through all the long hours without a pause, at length had ceased their shrill music, tucked up their long legs, and given themselves to slumber.
There on a nodding grass-blade, a tiny Gnat had made a swinging couch, and he too had folded his wings, closed his tiny eyes, and was fast asleep. Darker, darker, darker became the night until the darkness could almost be felt, and over all was a solemn stillness as though some powerful finger had bee