Talks to children

Front matter

THE DRINKING POOL

TALK5

TO

Contents

Introduction xiii

SHELTER

I. Home S

Introduction

THIS book has been prepared mtb the purpose of helping the busy mother to perform her part in the education of her children by encouraging them to ask questions and by answering them patiently and intelligently.

Parents need constantly to remind themselves of the value of a child's first questions and the importance of answering them in such a manner as to guide the growing mind into habits of observation, thoughtfulness and further investigation.

It must be remembered that this world is very new to the little child. It is but natural that he should wish to know all about it. How can he learn? By asking questions. What and how much he learns will depend upon the answers he receives.

The wise mother, therefore, welcomes, even anticipates these questions and sets aside, with the same regularity with which she plans the meals, some part of each day which shall truly be the children's hour, when they can go to her with their queries sure of ready response.

At bedtime, in their warm nighties, toasting their toes before the open fire, my own three boys and I, and as often their father as well, have talked since the oldest of them was first able to understand, thus storing up many precious memories.

The talks here given have grown out of my own xiii

INTRODUCTION

experience and are amplifications of our own bedtime talks. They are not intended to be used word for word as they stand, but are offered merely as a suggestive guide which may serve, I hope, as a useful means of stimulating thought and answering innumerable questions about the common things of everyday life — where we live, what we eat, how we are clothed, how we make our way from point to point, etc., seeking always to encourage intelligent questioning, to inform the children, and to enlarge and enrich their vocabulary.

We have tried always to choose the best words, even though unfamiliar to them, being careful to explain briefly and 2j:early what they could not readily grasp.

Above all, these talks are intended to lead the child to a sense of the significance of the interdependence of all things, all workers, nations, races, seasons, ages; each upon each, and the dependence of all upon their Creator.

Alice Packard

SHELTER

TALKS TO CHILDREN I

HOME

"Over in the meadow, in the sand, in the sun. Lived an old mother-toad and her Httle toadie one. 'Wink!' said the mother. 'I wink,' said the one: So she winked and she blinked, in the sand, in the sun.

** Over in the meadow, where the stream runs blue. Lived an old mother-fish and her little fishes two. 'S^N-im!' said the mother. *We swim,' said the two: So they swam and they leaped, where the stream runs blue.

*'Over in the meadow, in a hole in a tree. Lived a mother-bluebird and her little birdies three. 'Sing!' said the mother. 'We sing,' said the three: So they sang and were glad in a hole in the tree.

" Over in the meadow, in the reeds on the shore. Lived a mother-muskrat and her little muskrats four, 'Dive!' said the mother. 'We dive,' said the four: So they dived and they burrowed in the reeds on the shore.

**Over in the meadow, in a snug beehive, Lived a mother-honeybee and her little honeys five. 'Buzz!' said the mother. 'We buzz," said the five: So they buzzed and they hummed in the snug beehive.

**Over in the meadow, in a nest built of sticks. Lived a black mother-crow and her little crows six. '•Caw!' said the mother. 'We caw,' said the six: So they cawed and they cawed, in their nest built of sticks. 3

** Over in the meadow, where the grass is so even. Lived a gay mother-cricket and her little crickets seven. 'Chirp!' said the mother. 'We chirp,' said the seven: So they chirped cheery notes in the grass soft and even.

"Over in the meadow by the old mossy gate, Lived a brown mother-lizard and her little lizards eight. *Bask!' said the mother. *We bask,' said the eight: So they basked in the smi on the old mossy gate.

"Over in the meadow, where the clear pools shine. Lived a green mother-frog and her little froggies nine. 'Croak!' said the mother. 'We croak,' said the nine: So they croaked and they plashed, where the clear pools shinCc

"Over in the meadow, in a sly little den. Lived a gray mother-spider and her little spiders ten. 'Spin!' said the mother. 'We spin,' said the ten: So they spun large webs in their sly little den."

Olive A. Wadsworth, "Over in the Meadow.'*

IT'S time to go home.'' How many people all over the world say this! Brother coming home from school, Mother coming home from the store or club. Father coming home from work. Did you ever say, "It's time to go home"?

"And then what did you do?"

Came home to Mother and Father and Brother and Sister, did n't you? And came right into the house and found Mother and a warm, cozy room and some playthings. By and by, when it got dark, you turned on the light, or Mother lighted a lamp, and gave you some supper and then told you a story, or looked at the pictures in a book and told you about them, and after your prayer was said, cuddled you into a springy bed,

HOIVIE

tucked you in under warm, soft blankets and kissed you **Good-night."

Now suppose your house had not been here when you came home! What would you have done?

" Gone over to Dana's ? "

But suppose his house had not been here?

How did your house and Dana's happen to be here and how long have they been here, do you think? And all the things that Mother uses to make you comfortable; to get your supper and to put you to bed and to make the home warm and bright; where did they come from?

No, they have not always been here. There was a time when all about here as far as the whole town, yes, and two towns and farther, there was nothing but woods. No, not a single house, just a great forest.

Father and Mother did n't live here then. No, nor Grandmother, nor her mother and grandmother. In fact there were no white people here then, but — there were homes.

Can you think of any one who might have had a home here then? Any families that build their homes in the woods now?

"Yes, the squirrels." High up in the tree-tops, you will see what looks like a great bunch of dry, brown leaves and sticks and this is the squirrel's summer home. In the winter you may find a squirrel family in its house in a hollow tree and if you watch in the autumn, when the leaves are turning red and gold and flymg through the air like birds, you will see them laying in their winter store of nuts and acorns.

Yes, the birds, too, have their homes in the trees, though look sharp when you go out again and you will see that some of them build their homes right on the ground, some of them in hollow trees, and some in the bushes and vines. Although these houses, or nests, as we call the birds' homes, are made with great labor and care, they use them only one season, so if you wish to look at them closely you may bring them home in the autumn and winter. That is the time when Jack Frost is out playing in the garden and woods, and the trees are bare, remember, and do not take them at any other time or the birds may come home some night, just as you do, and not find any home.

If you do bring the nests home and look closely at them you will find that each kind of a bird builds a different kind of a house and that they do not all use the same kind of things to build with. Look long and hard enough and you will find out just what each kind of a bird does use with which to build its nest and just what sort of a place each kind chooses in which to build.

Dallas Lore Sharp, who has told a great many children what to look for in the woods and fields, says, and I want you to learn this: "Learn to look long enough and hard enough at everything to see something fresh and interesting about it. Most persons have eyes, but only a few persons can really see. And that is because they cannot fix their roving eyes on any one thing long enough to tell any two things about it. All they can tell is that it is a lion and not a dandelion.'*

See if you can find out what birds weave their nests, what birds plaster them like a mason, what ones ham-

HOME

mer them out like a carpenter, what ones build in holes and hollow trees and will build in houses that you put out for them, and what ones glue their nests to chimneys and what kinds build no nests at all.

See, as well, what they use to line their nests with.

Out in the grass you will find homes, too, under logs and stones and bricks; down in the meadows you will find homes; and in the ponds and brooks; in the sea, also, and in the marsh, there are homes a-plenty; and in the sand on the shore.

When you hear the cricket chirping, that delightful little musician in his suit of black patent leather, you will likely find him sitting in the sun or feasting upon some sort of green, growing leaves, but if you follow him home you will find that he is a cave-dweller and makes his house almost anywhere near his food supply of clover or grass, under boards or loose stones or a clod of earth in some sunny nook in the fields or by the roadside.

When you are frightened away by a spider just like Little Miss Muffet, if instead of running too far you watch him for a while and then look for others as you go walking, you will find that some spiders weave a tent for their babies, some make a tube web in holes under the stones, while some carry their babies on their backs and build webs in which to sit and watch for the insects which they eat for food.

Go and watch at the ponds and brooks and meadows in the spring, and you will find homes of all sorts, built of all kinds of things which are to be found near by; homes of famihes that crawl, that walk, that fly, that swim,

TALES TO CHILDREN

and some that cannot move about except when they are carried.

Late in March, you will find where the frogs live if you go down to the swamp or marsh, and perhaps you will find their eggs laid in a mass in the shallow water. Not many days later, you will see the tadpoles swimming about finding food for themselves.

In April, you may find a little nest of algae or green scum. In this the fish's eggs are laid and here the little fishes are hatched and stay until they are big enough to take care of themselves.

Out in the tall grass or dry moss, or the thick creeping vines like the mountain cranberry, you will find zigzagging here and there, a network of tiny trails, beaten hard and smooth by tiny feet. If you take pains to follow these you may find the home of the little field mice, a cozy little nest lined with soft grasses and containing six or eight cunning babies. Sometimes, too, you will find their homes in a last year's bird's nest in a bush.

In a marsh by the edge of a lake or stream you will often see what looks like a great mound of coarse reeds and grass; this is the muskrat's home.

In the same sort of place the beaver builds his lodge. He is both a carpenter and a mason and saws down great trees with his sharp teeth. With these he dams up wide streams. He carries sticks, stones, and quantities of of mud with which to build and plaster his house.

In a hollow log, or in the ground, you may find a whole colony of ant families at home, or in a hollow tree, a beehive hidden away full of honey for the winter's food.

Oh, yes, there were homes of all sorts, and here where 8

HOME

our house now is, long before either you or I, or our grandmothers came here to live, there were just such animal homes and others of great savage animals, which we do not see to-day.

These animal homes you have found are not all alike; some are in the ground, some are on the ground, and some are far above the ground and they are made of different materials and in different ways.

How is it with houses that people build? Is your house just like Dana's.? Yours is large and his is small? Yes, and his is made of wood and yours of brick. And Jack's of stone? I'm glad you noticed that and what is Auntie's made of? Yes, plaster.

These are not all of the things that people use. When Mrs. Grover was in Hawaii, she found the houses there were many of them made of a long, heavy grass.

In China bamboo and mud and clay are used a great deal. [Bamboo and how it grov/s and what it is used for will interest the children.]

We are told that way off in Central Africa where not many people have ever visited and the forests are still thick and dark that the houses are built of poles around which are woven grass and broad leaves to form a thatch.

In the Arctic regions where it is cold and the snow stays aU the year round. Daddy said he found the houses built of snow.

In some places there are sod houses. Square pieces of grass sod are cut and piled up like bricks.

Then there are dugouts, that is, as its name says, houses dug out of the ground.

Down in New Mexico, you will find adobe houses. Clay and chopped straw are mixed and pressed into molds, then left in the sun to dry, and this makes adobe bricks. The roofs of these houses are often made of brush on which mud is spread.

Houses have even been built of salt, rock salt cut into blocks. So you see, that just as animal homes differ so do those of people according to the place in which they build their houses; what they find to build with, and according to what they have learned about how to build.

Men, however, have learned to use the things about them to make tools with which to work and make more and more comfortable houses; to bring to the place in which they wish to live the things which grow far away; to make their houses cool in summer and warm in winter; to light their homes when it is dark and to shade them when the sun is too bright; while the animals, apparently, do not improve or advance in any way, and although fiercer and stronger, many of them, man has tamed them or killed them and made them almost wholly dependent upon his will.

[Be sure and bring out in this talk the idea of the universal need of shelter and that out of the house, the family with its love, each for the other, makes a home. Sing *'Home, Sweet Home.'*]

II The Log House

" Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new habitation, Solid, substantial, of timber rough-he%\Ti from the firs of the forest Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered wth rushes; Latticed the windows were, and the window panes were of paper Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were excluded. There too he dug a well, and around it planted an orchard: Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well and the orchard." Henry W. Longfellow, "The Courtship of Miles Standish."

AFTER a while men who lived in places where < there were trees learned to cut them down, trim off the branches, and make log houses. This was the sort of house that the first white people who came to this country made.

After the branches were trimmed from the trunks of the trees they were cut into logs of the right length and fitted together.

If you should lay your sticks to make a square you would see how they started the house. To fit them together at the corners they cut notches in the ends of the logs and fitted them in. Then, because they had no nails as we have now, they made long pins by whittling the wood and pinned them together with these. To drive in the pins they made holes first, for you cannot drive a wooden pin into wood as you can an iron nail. To bore these holes they used augers as carpenters do to-day. They built the walls high enough by piling log upon log, just as you build with your blocks.

This left spaces between where the cold air and rain and snow could blow in. These spaces they chinked up with mud and sods.

When the work was too hard for the family to do the neighbors came and helped them. These neighbors lived sometimes miles away and sometimes there were only a few fields between the houses.

Should we think now of sending for the neighbors to help us build our house .^ Who would do this work for us.?

When the roof was put on the house it took a number of helpers. This was called a "raising" and was as good fun for the children as a holiday is now, for all the neighbors came and stayed to dinner.

They cut the logs into short pieces and used these for shingles. You can see how different these were from the shingles which are used to-day.

There were no furniture stores then so what did they do for beds?

They nailed boards to the sides of the walls, letting the walls form two sides of the bed. For mattresses they Used dried grass, pine boughs, corn husks, or feathers.

Tables and chairs were made from logs, too, just as we made some at camp once.

In this large room, the only one they had to use for kitchen, dining-room, living-room, and sometimes to sleep in, they built a fireplace of stone with a great chimney — usually this chimney was outside of the house.

This fire was the only means of heating the house and very often its bright blaze was the only light. We read o "o

THE LOG HOUSE

stories of many a boy of those days reading by the firelight.

At the side of the fireplace was fastened a great bar of iron which could be swung from side to side. This was known as the crane. On it hung great iron hooks. On these the iron kettles and pots were hung and the crane then swung over the fire. When the kettle was to be emptied the crane was swung away from the fire and the pot would cool and be far enough from the blaze so that the person cooking could stir what was in it or dip from it.

To bake they placed a tin oven over the hot coals. Sometimes they built ovens of brick and in these built a fire. When the oven was hot enough they cleared out what was left of the coals and baked in that.

What fun they had by those open fires in those days — when the snow was deep outside or the wind was blowing hard, they were warm and cozy inside by the cheery blaze, telling stories as they roasted apples or popped corn.

There were bedrooms made up near the roof in some of these houses but there were no stairs to reach them.

So when they went to bed they had to climb a ladder which they made as Daddy made one for your tree house, by nailing sticks to the tree, by nailing strips of logs to the side of the house.

My grandmother used to tell me stories of what her grandmother told her about sleeping in one of these log htuses. She could hear the wind whistling and feel the snow sifting in between the cracks and blowing on her bed.

Sometimes as she listened to the pine trees, saying to her as they did to Hiawatha, " Minne wawa," she could hear the wolves howling far away. They were afraid of a fire, though, so she knew they would not harm her in the log house with its open fire.

The only light was from a tallow candle and this she must not burn any longer than to pop quickly into bed.

All the water they used they carried in pails from a spring a long way from the house.

But they were very happy there for the whole family was together and she had never known a better house.

in

THE INDIAN HOME

BEFORE your house was built here you told me there were homes here; homes of animals, but did you know there were homes of people here, too?

Not white people like us, but people whose skins were dark red or copper-colored.

You remember the Chinaman at the laundry has a yellow skin. And the Japanese who sold you the toys made in Japan has a yellow skin, too. All these families are called the Yellow Race and those with red skins the Red Men, or Indians.

These Red men used to live in all parts of this country. When Columbus came here he thought this country was India and he called the people whom he found here Indians and that is what the Red men have been called ever since.

In those days, you must remember, the people did not know how to make boards or bricks. They had no sawmills or brick yards. There were no carpenters for whom they could send when they wanted to build a house; there were no stores where they could buy a bed or a table or a chair or even anything to wear or to eat.

Instead of our stores, schools, and churches, there were great forests of trees bigger than any that you have seen, covering places bigger than our whole town, and here lived great, wild animals such as we seldom see to-day except in the circus or in the zoo.

Can you name any? Yes, wolves, bears, elk, and many other animals which you will never see because they have all been killed.

In other places there were great plains covered with grass and there the buffaloes, cattle, and ponies wandered wild, feeding on the grass.

These ponies the Indians caught and tamed.

Other animals they killed for food and used their skins and furs for clothing; they also fished and ate the fishes. In this way they became great travelers, as well as himters, because when the great herds had eaten the grass in one place, they roved about in search of new pastures, and the Indians had to follow. They could not live in one place for years as we do.

So they made their houses of the things that grew near where they happened to be, and in the easiest and quickest way. Sometimes when they moved they took their houses with them, just as people now take a tent with them when they go camping, or as the men in the army did when they were in the war.

The Indian homes were not all alike, nor made of the same kind of things any more than are all the houses of the people whom you know.

The Indians out on the plains called their houses tepees. To make these they cut straight, strong slender trees and chipped off all the branches. These made poles. These poles they tied together at the top with thongs. To make the thongs, which they used as we use rope or string, they cut the skins of animals into strips. Then spreading out the poles at the bottom, they pounded the ends into the ground, tight, and covered

THE INDIAN HOME

the wiiole with a buffalo skin or the skins of any animals that they happened to have killed. Sometimes they painted pictures on the skin covering; pictures of hunting or of fighting.

An opening was left at the top for a chimney, so that if it was cold, they could build a fire on the ground in the middle of the tepee and the smoke could go up through the hole.

Around the edges of the tent the father and mother and children wrapped themselves up in the skins of animals and slept. They hung a big kettle over the fire and cooked their meals and were very happy because it was their home.

Other tribes of Indians who lived in a part of the country where the grass grew tall and thick covered the poles with this instead of skins. First they wound smaller poles round the first poles, like hoops on a barrel, and then wove wisps of grass in the framework just as you weave raflSa mats.

The Navajo Indians covered their framework of poles with earth, putting on first a layer of bark and weeds to keep it from falling through into the hogans, as they called their houses. For summer they made an open shelter by driving poles into the ground in four comers, then laying poles across the top and covering the top, back, and one end, with boughs and grass.

The Digger Indians, so called because they dug roots from the earth for their food, made a similar house, but covered their pole framework with rushes.

Others called their houses wigwams or lodges.

These they made of pine boughs. Probably here 17 where we now live there was once a wigwam made from the boughs of some of the big trees that we talked about and probably many a night a great camp fire gleamed in what is now our front yard, or perhaps where our garden is, and the family sat around and watched the cooking of the deer, which the father had shot for their supper with the bow and arrow he had made himself.

By and by perhaps you will learn more about these Red Men and what they did before you lived here.

[The children will enjoy making an Indian head-dress and building a hogan in the woods.]

IV The Eskimo Home

AWAY up north where the Eskimos live, there are no forests because it is too cold for the trees to grow, but the snow is deep and hard so that it can be cut in great blocks. With this the people build their houses, igloos they call them. They choose a place where the snow is deep and firmly packed. With a long knife made of bone, they cut a great block from the snow. Standing in the hole where this block was, they cut out other blocks with which they make a circle. On top of these another layer is placed, carefully, as in a brick wall, so that the joints as they come together do not form a straight line. Layer after layer is placed until for the top layer just one block is needed to finish the igloo. Then snow is carefully packed in between each block just as the bricks in a wall are packed together close with mortar.

For doors, openings are cut underneath the lowest layer of blocks, and for some distance in front a tunnel is dug in the snow, through which they crawl when they wish to enter the house.

For windows, cakes of clear ice are set in the wall. To keep out the cold, skins of animals are hung about the walls or at the openings.

For a bed the snow is packed hard and on this is laid moss, grass, or twigs, if they can be found. Over these are laid the skins of animals, seal or walrus, and soft skins and furs are the bed clothes.

The smoke from the stove, which is a wick of moss in a hollow stone filled with whale oil (and this gives them their light, too), goes up through a hole in the roof, just as it does in the Indian homes.

Only one-room houses these, but the Indian mothers and the Eskimo mothers love their babies just as your mother loves you and tucks them away warm and comfy under furs and skins just as your mother does you under sheets and blankets.

When the snow is deep enough we will try to make a little igloo in the back yard. I remember one winter Brother made one with the room inside big enough for him to stand up in. Oh, what fun he had!

V THE FIRST HOMES

JUST as Indian homes were built before our houses were, so other houses were built by people who lived before grandmother was a little girl, and some by people who lived so long ago that now there is nothing left of their houses to see but a stone or two or a tool or weapon which they used. And so we think back to a time when "there were no houses or farms or roads from one place to another, and there was not a single city, or a town, or even a village in the whole earth."