Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know | Page 2

aid?
I wonder!
I wonder if in far Cathay The nightingale still trills her lay Beside the
Porcelain Palace door, And courtiers praise her as before I If emperors
dream of bygone things And musing, weep the while she sings-- I
wonder!
Such things have never chanced to me. I wonder if to eyes that see
These magic visions still appear In daily living, now and here; If every
flower is touched with glory, If e'en the grass-blades tell a story-- I
wonder N. A. S.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION
There is a Chinese tale, known as "The Singing Prisoner," in which a
friendless man is bound hand and foot and thrown into a dungeon,
where he lies on the cold stones unfed and untended.
He has no hope of freedom and as complaint will avail him nothing, he
begins to while away the hours by reciting poems and stories that he
had learned in youth. So happily does he vary the tones of the speakers,
feigning in turn the voices of kings and courtiers, lovers and princesses,
birds and beasts, that he speedily draws all his fellow-prisoners around
him, beguiling them by the spell of his genius.
Those who have food, eagerly press it upon him that his strength may
be replenished; the jailer, who has been drawn into the charmed circle,
loosens his bonds that he may move more freely, and finally grants him
better quarters that the stories may be heard to greater advantage. Next
the petty officers hear of the prisoner's marvellous gifts and report them
everywhere with such effect that the higher authorities at last become
interested and grant him a pardon.
Tales like these, that draw children from play and old men from the
chimney-corner; that gain the freedom of a Singing Prisoner, and
enable a Scheherazade to postpone from night to night her hour of
death, are one and all pervaded by the same eternal magic. Pain, grief,
terror, care, and bondage are all forgotten for a time when lakes of
gems and enchanted waterfalls shimmer in the sunlight, when
Rakshas's palaces rise, full-built, before our very eyes, or when
Caballero's Knights of the Fish prance away on their magic chargers. "I
wonder when!" "I wonder how!" "I wonder where!" we say as we
follow them into the land of mystery. So Youngling said when he heard
the sound of the mysterious axe in the forest and asked himself who
could be chopping there.

"I wonder!" he cried again when he listened to the faerie spade digging
and delving at the top of the rocks.
"I wonder!" he questioned a third time when he drank from the
streamlet and sought its source, finding it at last in the enchanted
walnut. Axe and spade and walnut each gladly welcomed him, you
remember, saying, "It's long I've been looking for you, my lad!" for the
new world is always awaiting its Columbus.
No such divine curiosity as that of Youngling's stirred the dull minds of
his elder brothers and to them came no such reward. They jeered at the
wanderer, reproaching him that he forever strayed from the beaten path,
but when Youngling issues from the forest with the magic axe, the
marvellous spade, and the miraculous nut to conquer his little world,
we begin to ask ourselves which of the roads in the wood are indeed
best worth following.
"Childish wonder is the first step in human wisdom," said the greatest
of the world's showmen, but there are no wonders to the eyes that lack
real vision. In the story of "What the Birds Said," for instance, the
stolid jailer flatly denies that the feathered creatures have any message
of import to convey; it is the poor captive who by sympathy and insight
divines the meaning of their chatter and thus saves the city and his own
life.
The tales in this book are of many kinds of wonder; of black magic,
white magic and gray; ranging from the recital of strange and
supernatural deeds and experiences to those that fore-shadow modern
conquests of nature and those that utilize the marvellous to teach a
moral lesson. Choose among them as you will, for as the Spaniards
might say, "The book is at your feet; whatever you admire is yours!"
"Tales of Wonder" is the fourth and last of our Fairy Series in the
Children's Classics, so this preface is in the nature of an epilogue. "The
Fairy Ring," "Magic Casements," "Tales of Laughter"--each had its
separate message for its little public, and "Tales of Wonder" rings
down the curtain.

There was once a little brown nightingale that sang melodious strains in
the river-thickets of the Emperor's garden, but when she was
transported to the Porcelain Palace the courtiers soon tired of her
wild-wood notes