CHAPTER

I. A Child’s Dream of a Star
   By Charles Dickens

II.  The King of the Golden River or, The Black Brothers
    By John Ruskin

III.  The Snow Image:  A Childish Miracle
     By Nathaniel Hawthorne

IV.  Undine
    By Friedrich, Baron de la Motte FOUQUE

V. The Story of Ruth
   from the book of Ruth

VI.  The Great Stone Face
    By Nathaniel Hawthorne

VII.  The Diverting History of John Gilpin
     By William Cowper

VIII.  The Man Without a Country
      By Edward Everett Hale

IX.  The Nuernberg Stove
    By Louise de la RAMEE ("Ouida”)

X. Rab and His Friends
   By John brown, M.D.

XI.  Peter Rugg, the Missing Man
    By William Austin

STORIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW

I

A CHILD’S DREAM OF A STAR

There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things.  He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion.  These two used to wonder all day long.  They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world.

They used to say to one another, sometimes, supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry?  They believed they would be sorry.  For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hill-sides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.

There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves.  It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window.  Whoever saw it first cried out, “I see the star!” And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where.  So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good-night; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, “God bless the star!”

But while she was still very young, oh very, very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, “I see the star!” and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, “God bless my brother and the star!”