"Through books we may, without stirring from our firesides, roam to the remotest regions of the earth." EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. FOURTH READER BY FRANKLIN T. BAKER PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN TEACHERS COLLEGE HORACE MANN SCHOOL AND ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ILLUSTRATED BY WILLY POGANY New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1918 All rights reserved ✓ HARVARD COLLEGE LIEND ALBERT BUSHNELL HART DEC S 1923 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1917. PREFACE The EVERYDAY CLASSICS is a series of school readers The principle based upon a valid principle and a vital need. is that there is a considerable body of good literature, known to all people who know books, and simple enough to be understood and enjoyed by children. Much of it, indeed, is of most value if read in childhood, and retained through life as a permanent influence upon one's attitude towards life. The need of such a series is seen in the fact that many children are not put in touch with much of this common heritage of the race. In the teacher's natural desire to find something new and different, many of the old and approved things have been pushed aside. A classic is something more easily known than defined. It is not necessarily abstruse, difficult, or remote from common life. It is a piece of literature that has received the approval of good judges for a long enough time to make that approval settled. Like good music, it cannot grow old; it is last year's rag-time that becomes unpleasant, not the good old songs. A classic may be as old as Homer, or as new as Hawthorne; it may be as difficult as Dante, or as simple as Mother Goose. Indeed, a large proportion of the classics of the world are very |