April 11, 2010

GUIDO RENI.

GUIDO RENI.

IN Bologna, an Italian city, there lived an old musician who had a beautiful little boy. He taught him to sing, and play on the harp, but Guido loved drawing better than music, and instead of practicing, made pictures and little figures in clay.

His father thought this was a waste of time, and gave him many whippings, but nothing could prevent the little fellow from drawing. When his paper was taken away, he marked on the walls, and after he had filled them, he drew pictures in the dust.

But Guido’s good luck came at last. His father gave a concert at the palace of a great lord, and Guido went with him. He met there a famous painter, who was so pleased when he saw the boy’s pictures, that he advised his father to let him be an artist.

To his great joy Guido was put in a studio, and studied so well, that when he was thirteen, his master made him teach the other scholars. As the years went by, he became a wonderful painter, and even kings paid the highest prices for his pictures.

The crowning glory of his whole life was his famous painting of Aurora, on the ceiling of a summer-house of a palace in Rome.

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November 13, 2009

THE STOLEN CHILD.

The Stolen Child.

THIS is a sad story, as you well know. But sad things take place now and then, and we cannot help it. It is a story about a little boy, named Peter. That was to be his name when he grew up, but now nobody called him anything but Pete.

Pete had had a bad fall when a little baby and it left him with a weak back, so that he could not run and romp like the rest of the small boys. He had toys to play with, but there were not nice or new, and he soon tired of them. What he wanted most of all was a doll. Really? Yes. He was ashamed to let the boys know it for fear they would call him “Sissy,” but deep down in his heart there was a strong desire for a doll to hug, and to hold, and to take to bed with him.

One day a lady came to the house, and somehow she guessed just what kind of boy Pete was. Without saying a word, she took a small shawl off a hook, gave it a fold and a roll, pinned it together and then handed it over to the small boy.

You should have seen Pete’s face! There was not room on it for the broad smile that tried to get there, and finally had to break itself all up into little bits. Oh, how he hugged and loved that doll! and he soon got so he did not mind being seen on the street with it in his arms. There was no danger of breaking it; and it could sit down bea — u — ti — fully.

One day Pete thought he would try to climb a lamp-post. He had seen the other boys do it, and it looked easy, but he would need two hands. So the doll — Matilda Jane — had to sit down on a stoop near by and wait until Pete came back for her.

Well, it was not long; but when Pete got back to the place where Matilda Jane was he could not find her.

She was go —— o —— o —— ne! Somebody had stolen her!

Pete was heart-broken. He cried, and cried, and cried. He should never see his own dear Matilda Jane again! And the worst of it was that he wouldn’t know her if he saw her. Even his mother laughed, and said “Oh, it was only an old shawl. No great loss!”

But Pete’s heart was wrapped up in that shawl and that is what makes this a sad story. He might have other dolls, but none that would take the place of his Matilda Jane.

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