|
| Navigation Starts Here |
|
| Navigation Starts Here |
|
Folklore, legends, myths
and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations. |
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with
Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's
wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be
carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a
roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking
cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four
chairs, and the beds.
|
|
When Dorothy stood in the doorway
and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. |
When Aunt Em came there
to live she was a young, pretty wife.
The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle
from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red
from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also.
|