How to Tell Stories to Children, And Some Stories to Tell Part 6

"I am faint with thirst," said the old man; "will you give me some of that water?"

Gluck saw that he was pale and tired, so he gave him the water, saying, "Please don't drink it all." But the old man drank a great deal, and gave back the bottle two-thirds emptied. Then he bade Gluck good speed, and Gluck went on merrily.

Some gra.s.s appeared on the path, and the gra.s.shoppers began to sing.

At the end of another hour, Gluck felt that he must drink again. But, as he raised the flask, he saw a little child lying by the roadside, and it cried out pitifully for water. After a struggle with himself Gluck decided to bear the thirst a little longer. He put the bottle to the child's lips, and it drank all but a few drops. Then it got up and ran down the hill.

All kinds of sweet flowers began to grow on the rocks, and crimson and purple b.u.t.terflies flitted about in the air.

At the end of another hour, Gluck's thirst was almost unbearable. He saw that there were only five or six drops of water in the bottle, however, and he did not dare to drink. So he was putting the flask away again when he saw a little dog on the rocks, gasping for breath. He looked at it, and then at the Golden River, and he remembered the dwarf's words, "No one can succeed except at the first trial"; and he tried to pa.s.s the dog. But it whined piteously, and Gluck stopped. He could not bear to pa.s.s it.

"Confound the King and his gold, too!" he said; and he poured the few drops of water into the dog's mouth.

The dog sprang up; its tail disappeared, its nose grew red, and its eyes twinkled. The next minute the dog was gone, and the King of the Golden River stood there. He stooped and plucked a lily that grew beside Gluck's feet. Three drops of dew were on its white leaves. These the dwarf shook into the flask which Gluck held in his hand.

"Cast these into the river," he said, "and go down the other side of the mountains into the Treasure Valley." Then he disappeared.

Gluck stood on the brink of the Golden River, and cast the three drops of dew into the stream. Where they fell, a little whirlpool opened; but the water did not turn to gold. Indeed, the water seemed vanis.h.i.+ng altogether.

Gluck was disappointed not to see gold, but he obeyed the King of the Golden River, and went down the other side of the mountains.

When he came out into the Treasure Valley, a river, like the Golden River, was springing from a new cleft in the rocks above, and flowing among the heaps of dry sand. And then fresh gra.s.s sprang beside the river, flowers opened along its sides, and vines began to cover the whole valley. The Treasure Valley was becoming a garden again.

Gluck lived in the Valley, and his grapes were blue, and his apples were red, and his corn was yellow; and the poor were never driven from his door. For him, as the King had promised, the river was really a River of Gold.

It will probably be clear to anyone who has followed these attempts, that the first step in adaptation is a.n.a.lysis, careful a.n.a.lysis of the story as it stands. One asks oneself, What is the story? Which events are necessary links in the chain? How much of the text is pure description?

Having this essential body of the story in mind, one then decides which of the steps toward the climax are needed for safe arrival there, and keeps these. When two or more steps can be covered in a single stride, one makes the stride. When a necessary explanation is unduly long, or is woven into the story in too many strands, one disposes of it in an introductory statement, or perhaps in a side remark. If there are two or more threads of narrative, one chooses among them, and holds strictly to the one chosen, eliminating details which concern the others.

In order to hold the simplicity of plot so attained, it is also desirable to have but few personages in the story, and to narrate the action from the point of view of one of them,--usually the hero. To s.h.i.+ft the point of view of the action is confusing to the child's mind.

When the a.n.a.lysis and condensation have been accomplished, the whole must be cast in simple language, keeping if possible the same kind of speech as that used in the original, but changing difficult or technical terms to plain, and complex images to simple and familiar ones.

All types of adaptation share in this need of simple language,--stories which are too short, as well as those which are too long, have this feature in their changed form. The change in a short story is applied oftenest where it becomes desirable to amplify a single anecdote, or perhaps a fable, which is told in very condensed form. Such an instance is the following anecdote of heroism, which in the original is quoted in one of F.W. Robertson's lectures on Poetry.

A detachment of troops was marching along a valley, the cliffs overhanging which were crested by the enemy. A sergeant, with eleven men, chanced to become separated from the rest by taking the wrong side of a ravine, which they expected soon to terminate, but which suddenly deepened into an impa.s.sable chasm. The officer in command signalled to the party an order to return. They mistook the signal for a command to charge; the brave fellows answered with a cheer, and charged. At the summit of the steep mountain was a triangular platform, defended by a breastwork, behind which were seventy of the foe. On they went, charging up one of those fearful paths, eleven against seventy. The contest could not long be doubtful with such odds. One after another they fell; six upon the spot, the remainder hurled backwards; but not until they had slain nearly twice their own number.

There is a custom, we are told, amongst the hillsmen, that when a great chieftain of their own falls in battle, his wrist is bound with a thread either of red or green, the red denoting the highest rank. According to custom, they stripped the dead, and threw their bodies over the precipice. When their comrades came, they found their corpses stark and gashed; but round both wrists of every British hero was twined the red thread!

This anecdote serves its purpose of ill.u.s.tration perfectly well, but considered as a separate story it is somewhat too explanatory in diction, and too condensed in form. Just as the long story is a.n.a.lysed for reduction of given details, so this must be a.n.a.lysed,--to find the details implied. We have to read into it again all that has been left between the lines.

Moreover, the order must be slightly changed, if we are to end with the proper "snap," the final sting of surprise and admiration given by the point of the story; the point must be prepared for. The purpose of the original is equally well served by the explanation at the end, but we must never forget that the place for the climax, or effective point in a story told, is the last thing said. That is what makes a story "go off" well.

Imagining vividly the situation suggested, and keeping the logical sequence of facts in mind, shall we not find the story telling itself to boys and girls in somewhat this form?

THE RED THREAD OF COURAGE[1]

[Footnote 1: See also _The Red Thread of Honour_, by Sir Francis Doyle, in _Lyra Heroica_.]

This story which I am going to tell you is a true one. It happened while the English troops in India were fighting against some of the native tribes. The natives who were making trouble were people from the hill-country, called Hillsmen, and they were strong enemies. The English knew very little about them, except their courage, but they had noticed one peculiar custom, after certain battles,--the Hillsmen had a way of marking the bodies of their greatest chiefs who were killed in battle by binding a red thread about the wrist; this was the highest tribute they could pay a hero. The English, however, found the common men of them quite enough to handle, for they had proved themselves good fighters and clever at ambushes.

One day, a small body of the English had marched a long way into the hill country, after the enemy, and in the afternoon they found themselves in a part of the country strange even to the guides. The men moved forward very slowly and cautiously, for fear of an ambush. The trail led into a narrow valley with very steep, high, rocky sides, topped with woods in which the enemy might easily hide.

Here the soldiers were ordered to advance more quickly, though with caution, to get out of the dangerous place.

After a little they came suddenly to a place where the pa.s.sage was divided in two by a big three-cornered boulder which seemed to rise from the midst of the valley. The main line of men kept to the right; to save crowding the path, a sergeant and eleven men took the left, meaning to go round the rock and meet the rest beyond it.

They had been in the path only a few minutes when they saw that the rock was not a single boulder at all, but an arm of the left wall of the valley, and that they were marching into a deep ravine with no outlet except the way they came. Both sides were sheer rock, almost perpendicular, with thick trees at the top; in front of them the ground rose in a steep hill, bare of woods. As they looked up, they saw that the top was barricaded by the trunks of trees, and guarded by a strong body of Hillsmen. As the English hesitated, looking at this, a shower of spears fell from the wood's edge, aimed by hidden foes. The place was a death trap.

At this moment, their danger was seen by the officer in command of the main body, and he signalled to the sergeant to retreat.

By some terrible mischance, the signal was misunderstood. The men took it for the signal to charge. Without a moment's pause, straight up the slope, they charged on the run, cheering as they ran.

Some were killed by the spears that were thrown from the cliffs, before they had gone half way; some were stabbed as they reached the crest, and hurled backward from the precipice; two or three got to the top, and fought hand to hand with the Hillsmen. They were outnumbered, seven to one; but when the last of the English soldiers lay dead, twice their number of Hillsmen lay dead around them!

When the relief party reached the spot, later in the day, they found the bodies of their comrades, full of wounds, huddled over and in the barricade, or crushed on the rocks below. They were mutilated and battered, and bore every sign of the terrible struggle. _But round both wrists of every British soldier was bound the red thread!_

The Hillsmen had paid greater honour to their heroic foes than to the bravest of their own brave dead.

Another instance is the short poem, which, while being perfectly simple, is rich in suggestion of more than the young child will see for himself.

The following example shows the working out of details in order to provide a satisfactorily rounded story.

THE ELF AND THE DORMOUSE[1]

[Footnote 1: Adapted from _The Elf and the Dormouse_, by Oliver Herford, in _A Treasury of Verse for Little Children_. (Harrap. 1s. net.)]

Once upon a time a dormouse lived in the wood with his mother. She had made a snug little nest, but Sleepy-head, as she called her little mousie, loved to roam about among the gra.s.s and fallen leaves, and it was a hard task to keep him at home. One day the mother went off as usual to look for food, leaving Sleepy-head curled up comfortably in a corner of the nest. "He will lie there safely till I come back," she thought.

Presently, however, Sleepy-head opened his eyes and thought he would like to take a walk out in the fresh air. So he crept out of the nest and through the long gra.s.s that nodded over the hole in the bank. He ran here and he ran there, stopping again and again to c.o.c.k his little ears for sound of any creeping thing that might be close at hand. His little fur coat was soft and silky as velvet. Mother had licked it clean before starting her day's work, you may be sure. As Sleepy-head moved from place to place his long tail swayed from side to side and tickled the daisies so that they could not hold themselves still for laughing.

Presently something very cold fell on Sleepy-head's nose. What could it be? He put up his little paw and dabbed at the place. Then the same thing happened to his tail. He whisked it quickly round to the front. Ah, it was raining! Now Sleepy-head couldn't bear rain, and he had got a long way from home. What would mother say if his nice furry coat got wet and draggled? He crept under a bush, but soon the rain found him out. Then he ran to a tree, but this was poor shelter. He began to think that he was in for a soaking when what should he spy, a little distance off, but a fine toadstool which stood bolt upright just like an umbrella. The next moment Sleepy-head was crawling underneath the friendly shelter. He fixed himself up as snugly as he could, with his little nose upon his paws and his little tail curled round all, and before you could count six, eight, ten, twenty, he was fast asleep.

Now it happened that Sleepy-head was not the only creature that was caught by the rain that morning in the wood. A little elf had been flitting about in search of fun or mischief, and he, too, had got far from home when the raindrops began to come pattering through the leafy roof of the beautiful wood. It would never do to get his pretty wings wet, for he hated to walk--it was such slow work and, besides, he might meet some big wretched animal that could run faster than himself. However, he was beginning to think that there was no help for it, when, on a sudden, there before him was the toadstool, with Sleepy-head snug and dry underneath! There was room for another little fellow, thought the elf, and ere long he had safely bestowed himself under the other half of the toadstool, which was just like an umbrella.

Sleepy-head slept on, warm and comfortable in his furry coat, and the elf began to feel annoyed with him for being so happy. He was always a great mischief, and he could not bear to sit still for long at a time. Presently he laughed a queer little laugh. He had got an idea! Putting his two small arms round the stem of the toadstool he tugged and he pulled until, of a sudden, snap! He had broken the stem, and a moment later was soaring in air safely sheltered under the toadstool, which he held upright by its stem as he flew.

Sleepy-head had been dreaming, oh, so cosy a dream! It seemed to him that he had discovered a storehouse filled with golden grain and soft juicy nuts with little bunches of sweet-smelling hay, where tired mousies might sleep dull hours away. He thought that he was settled in the sweetest bunch of all, with nothing in the world to disturb his nap, when gradually he became aware that something had happened. He shook himself in his sleep and settled down again, but the dream had altered. He opened his eyes.

Rain was falling, pit-a-pat, and he was without cover on a wet patch of gra.s.s. What could be the matter? Sleepy-head was now wide awake. Said he,

"DEAR ME, WHERE IS MY TOADSTOOL?"

From these four instances we may, perhaps, deduce certain general principles of adaptation which have at least proved valuable to those using them.

These are suggestions which the practised story-teller will find trite.

But to others they may prove a fair foundation on which to build a personal method to be developed by experience. I have given them a tabular arrangement below.