Remember the times Mother would read to us from this old Children's Literature book? (Her college text) One time that I vividly remember was when we were all so ill after Christmas in 1942, with Louise, Dwight and me in bed at one time. I particularly remember Mother reading the myth of Bacchus and Philemon to us - the one where the poor couple entertained a traveling vagrant when no one else in the village would, and he rewarded them by ensuring that their pitcher pouring "milk" would never be dry. What was my astonishment in 6th grade when we read the myths, to discover that the pitcher was really a wine pitcher. I suppose that grape juice would have more nearly fit what we knew about what people drank. (Being of a romantic nature, my favorite story was "Beauty and the Beast".) Be sure to click on the text page, so that you can read the story that is there.
3 comments:
Liz, you left out mentioning how, first of all, we children simply appropriated the Children's Lit book, knowing that it was really ours to begin with. Then we hauled it around outside all summer wherever we played when we were little. Also, you and I appropriated Mother's health hygiene book, or whatever it was, which we hauled around in your dolly buggy, which I knew was rightfully mine and appropriated accordingly without any objection whatsoever from you, with the big white cat. This book ultimately fell apart, totally, and vanished before we ever had a chance to learn how to read and study personal hygiene. But at least you resurrected the children's lit book. I've been wondering what we will do for posts on this blog when we run out of family treasures. Then it hit me: since you, shall we say, managed to end up with the Children's Lit book, you can go through, page by page, and post the entire thing so we can ALL remember the stories that were read to us when we were children. And, unlike all of us when our own children were growing up, this Children's Lit book was the only children's book Mother had when we were little during the Depression decade of the 1930s, making its memory all the more indelible.
Ok, so turn the page and finish the tale of the Fisherman and his wife. I hate leaving a story in the middle of the tale.
One of my favorite memories is when we would sit in the little "hidey-hole" we made in the wood pile and read alout to each other from the children's lit book. One of my favorite stories was the Old Man and the Sea. I thought he was very patient and that his wife was just plain greedy.
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