Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/38

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  • pose the church as the safest hiding place for the pot

of fat, hypocritically saying that no one would dare steal anything from a church. Then comes the cat's first "gulling" of the frank little mouse with his story of having been asked to be godfather to his cousin's remarkable child. "Beauty and the Beast" is another good character study, and from an important point of view for the little child's story a better one, as this time virtue is unmistakably triumphant.

The student will gradually develop sensibility to the typical materials of folk story: human difficulty overcome by supernatural aid; the task of guessing a name, or the forfeit of a child, as a condition for aid, as in "Rumpelstiltskin;" trial and triumph of the despised ugly third sister or stupid third brother; doughty deeds that overcome bulk of body with nimbleness of wit, as in "Jack the Giant Killer;" greed of wishing whose indulgence precipitates loss of all, as in "The Fisherman and his Wife;" reward of kindness to animals, as in "The Hut in the Wood."

The characters. Characterize the people in the story. In their varied company is the story-teller's opportunity to acquaint the child with the chief kinds of persons to be found in literature and life; the child himself, cherishing mother, doting grand-