The Lion and the Puppy: And Other Stories for Children
How Many Geese Make Six 38 The Dead Man and the Bear 40 The Little Bird 42 The Plum Stone 45 Better to Be Lean and Free than Plump and Chained 47 A Young Boy's Story of How He Did Not Go to Town 50 Dew upon the Grass 52 Uncle Jacob's Dog 54 Why Wolves Are Mean and Squirrels Frisky56 The Ants 58 From an Acorn Grew an Oak Tree Tall 60
INTRODUCTION LEO TOLSTOY STORIES FOR CHILDREN Do you know the story of the Selfish Giant who was never visited by Spring until he opened up his garden to children Here is a true story about a Russian nobleman who not only let children into the garden of his great country home he also taught them to read and write He even wrote the stories in this book for them And well he might For he was one of the greatest storytellers that ever lived a giant among authors His name was Leo Tolstoy This is how he came to write his stories for children Many years ago in Russia behind a big stone wall there was a beautiful garden with soft green grass and glades of silver birch The village children were not allowed into this garden All they could see as they peered through the tall iron railings of the gate was a distant lake shim mering through the trees beyond a neatly swept drive of stately poplars And somewhere in the grounds of that great garden they knew there stood a big house in which a famous gentleman lived The notice on the gates said Yasnaya Polyana which in Russian means Clear Glades
CLEAR GLADES Country House of Count L N Tolstoy That was plain enough The children knew they had to keep out How surprised and not a little afraid they were when one day they heard that the Count had summoned them to his mansion The word soon spread through the village What did he want them for Rumor had it that he wanted to teach them to read and write What a strange idea In those days there were few enough schools in the towns fewer still in the countryside Very very rarely could a villager read or write If a letter needed to be written people went to the deacon and had to pay a tidy sum for it There were no books in the village no newspapers no schools Yet now it seemed that the Count had a mind to open a school for poor children And to teach them himself The children were shy But on the appointed day they put on their Sunday best a clean shirt and fresh birch bark shoes smoothed down their unkempt hair with yellow sunflower oil or brown rye juice and set off in a crowd for the Big House The year was 1849 The gold and russet trees of autumn had laid a crisp carpet of leaves along the drive as the children made their way to the house Once past the dark still waters of the lake a big house suddenly came into view set back behind the trees The tall two story building seemed like a palace to boys and girls who had grown up in squat smoke begrimed huts under straw thatched roofs Nervously the knots of village children stood before the house waiting for the Count to appear Finally he appeared on the veranda a tall broad shouldered figure with long straggly hair a large fleshy nose and a bushy black beard As he fixed them with his fierce stare from under the most enormous vili
eyebrows the children drew back in alarm Yet the moment he smiled and spoke their shyness seemed to melt away The school at Clear Glades was open all day long and children could come and go as they pleased No one forced them to attend and no one forced any lessons upon them Each child did whatever took her or his fancy drawing reading writing sports And by all accounts the chil dren came to the school very willingly some arriving as early as seven in the morning and staying until late evening Such was their eagerness to learn But it was not all sitting at desks Tolstoy loved games In summer he taught the children croquet on his lawn and rigged up a small gym in the barn He took them on nature rambles through the woods and down to the river to swim And when the winter snows and ice came there was no end to the games the children played speeding downhill on great sleds snowballing tumbling in the snow with the Count himself in the thick of them They cleared the snow from the big lake to make a skating rink they held races there but few could beat Tolstoy who was an excellent skater At Christmastime he decorated a big fir tree inside his house and held a party for all the children on his estate Of course the thin ragged village children had never had such a party in their lives In those days children's lives were hard As soon as they were strong enough about the age of ten they had to drive a wooden plow and toil in the fields from dawn to dusk Childhood ended early in Russia at that time peasant families were but serfs slaves to the lords Yet here was a lord Count Tolstoy who was opening the doors of his house with its polished wooden floors lofty ceilings and bright win dows to the village children It all seemed a fairy tale But it was real enough And so was their teacher's love for them Throughout his long life Tolstoy loved children It hurt him to see so much poverty and ignorance among the children in the countryside But
