=Questions to arouse interest.= What do you see in this picture? What is the father doing? Who holds the baby? What is the baby trying to do? Why is the picture called "The First Step"? How many have a baby brother or sister who is just learning to walk? What has the father been doing? Why do you think so? Why did he stop? What is on the ground beside him? How is the man dressed? Where do these people live? What separates the house from the garden? What can you see next to the fence? Why do you think it is not a very warm day? Why do you like this picture?

=The story of the picture.= One bright day in the early fall of the year, when the leaves of the trees were thickest and the woodbine on the fence was just beginning to turn red, a little child was fretting to go outdoors. He was tired of staying in when all was beautiful outside, and he wanted his mother to stop her work and take him out into the sunshine, to the garden where his father was working. And by and by that is just what she did. Putting on her own cap, and a bonnet on the child's head, so there would be no danger of his taking cold, she carried him out to the old fence.

When the father saw them coming through the gate he dropped his spade and started to meet them. The little boy began to wave his arms, impatient to reach his father. Then the mother thought this would be a good time to let him try to walk. Placing him on the ground, she holds him safely while the father holds out his arms invitingly.

See, the baby has stepped forward! Now the mother will let him try to walk alone, keeping close behind, and ready to catch him if he should fall, until he reaches his father's arms. How proud they will be when their baby takes his first step all alone! He has been creeping and crawling for a long time, but now he is big enough to stand on his feet.

This family of hard-working peasants have little time for play; they must work to keep up their home. The father, as you see, has been digging potatoes with that heavy spade. He will put them in his wheelbarrow and take them to the house. Perhaps he will have enough to last him all winter, and some to sell, too.

The potatoes he wants to keep he will bury in the ground. In those days very few people had cellars in which to keep their vegetables.

Instead, they would dig a great hole in the ground, line it with straw, and then put the potatoes in, covering them with straw and earth. Then, instead of going to the grocery to buy potatoes as we do, they went out into the yard and dug them up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The First Step_]

No doubt the father made this fence, the spade, the pitchfork, and even the wheelbarrow we see in the picture, while the mother, we are sure, made all their clothes except the wooden shoes. Perhaps the father made them.

In those days the mothers could not go down to the store to buy the goods for their clothes as we do now. Instead they spun thread out of flax or wool, and then wove it into cloth on a great loom something like the small looms we use in school to make rugs and hammocks. This they usually did during the winter when there was less work to do, for there were so many more things that had to be done during the summer than during the winter.

In summer they had to take care of the fruit just as our mothers do.

But they did not know anything about canning it,--they would cook it a long time and make preserves or else they would dry it. They dried most of their fruit, making it just like the dried apples, peaches, and apricots we buy at the store.

In France, where this picture was painted, the women worked out in the fields just like the men. So you see how very busy they must have been. And yet they always found time to love and care for their little children.

We do not know even the name of this baby, or of his mother or father.

The artist, Millet, thought that of no importance at all. He did not even care to show us their faces, any more than he would care to show us the b.u.t.tons on their clothes. The important thing is the love and tenderness of this mother and father as they stop their work to guide, help, and encourage their baby in taking his first step. All his life the baby will find them never too tired or weary to help him when he needs it most.

Peasants like these, we know, lived in France, and as a rule they were very poor, although the two in our picture seem thrifty and comfortable. The trees, even the gra.s.s growing up beside the fence, seem st.u.r.dy and strong like the peasants to whom they belong.

We feel the strength of the father's extended arms, so ready and able to protect this baby. The mother, too, will do her share. Even the trees seem to bend toward these three as if to a.s.sure them of their protection.

This is a simple, homelike picture, whose chief beauty lies in its strong appeal to our feeling of sympathy with, and interest in, these honest country people.

=Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= What has the man been doing? With what did he dig the potatoes? Where will he put them?

Why does he not put them in the cellar? How will he keep them all winter? How will he bury them? Who made these peasants' clothes? the wheelbarrow, the spade, and the pitchfork? Why did they not buy them?

How did the mother make the cloth for their clothes? When did she do this? What must she do during the summer? How did they keep their fruit? Why do you think they are a happy family?

=The story of the artist.= Jean Franois Millet was the son of French peasants who must have been very much like the father and mother in this picture. But a picture of Millet's boyhood would not be complete unless it included his grandmother. You see, that dear old lady rocked him to sleep, played with him, and kept him happy all day long while his mother, like all French peasants, worked out in the fields with his father.

It was she who was the first to discover that her little grandson liked to draw. His first drawings were copies of pictures in his grandmother's old ill.u.s.trated Bible. He would listen to stories read to him from the Bible and then he would take a piece of chalk and draw a picture of what happened in the story.

Soon he began to draw large, bold pictures which covered the stone wall of their house. The grandmother was much pleased! She found a new story to read or tell him nearly every day.

Of course his father and mother saw the pictures as soon as they came home, and encouraged the boy as much as they could. The father liked to draw, too, but he could not see why Millet should be making up pictures from imagination when there were so many real things to draw.

So he called his son's attention to the trees, the fields, and houses in the distance, and soon the boy began to draw these, too.

One Sunday when Millet was coming home from church he met an old man, his back bent over a cane as he walked slowly along. Something about the bent figure made Millet feel he would like to draw a picture of the man just as he looked then. Taking a piece of charcoal from his pocket, he drew a picture of him from memory. He drew it on a stone wall, and as people pa.s.sed that way they recognized the man. All liked the picture very much, and told Millet so. His father, too, was delighted, and decided that his son should have a chance to become an artist.

One day the two went to an artist who lived in a neighboring town and showed him some of Millet's sketches. The artist was amazed, and at first would not believe the boy had drawn them. You may be sure he was glad to have this bright boy for a pupil. But Millet studied with him only two months, when he was called home by the death of his father.

At first it seemed as if they needed him so much at home he would never be able to go on with his studies. But soon the good people in the little village collected a sum of money and gave it to Millet, telling him it was for him to use to go to Paris and study. Millet was almost a grown man by this time, and you may be sure he was grateful and that he worked very hard while in Paris. But people did not like his pictures, and he was very poor. Other artists painted pictures of beautiful people dressed in fine clothes and living in rich homes, and so n.o.body cared for Millet's poor, humble peasants, dressed in their working clothes and doing the work they had to do.

It was not until Millet was an old man that people began to appreciate his work. Now most of those fashionable artists of his time have been forgotten, while the paintings of Jean Franois Millet have become more and more valuable.

=Questions about the artist.= Where did the artist live? Who took care of Millet when he was little? Why was his mother away from home so much? Who was the first one to see his drawings? What did he draw?

What did he use to make the drawings? Who helped him? how? How did his father help him? Tell about the old man leaning on a cane. Where did Millet draw his picture? Who saw it? What did they say? Where did his father take him to study? What did the artist think when he saw Millet's sketches? Why did Millet go home? What did his neighbors do for him? Where did he go then? Why was he so poor there? Why did not people like his pictures? What do people think of his pictures now?

A FASCINATING TALE

=Artist:= Madame Henriette Ronner (rnn?r).

=Birthplace:= Amsterdam, Holland.

=Dates:= Born, 1821. Still living, 1916.

=Questions to arouse interest.= In what room are these kittens? Why do you think so? Where is the mother cat? the kittens? What are they looking at? Why do you think the mouse does not know that the kittens can see his tail? Which one do you think will catch the mouse? Which one has the sharpest eyes? Which one looks frightened? Which one looks surprised? Why do you suppose they did not catch the mouse before it tried to hide? If they keep very still, what will the mouse think?

What will he do? What will happen then? What is on the table beside the kittens? What may happen to the ink bottle if the big cat jumps?

What is the color of these kittens' fur? How many of you have a pet kitten at home? Which one of these would you rather have? Why is the picture called "A Fascinating Tale"?

=The story of the picture.= Early one morning two plump little kittens started out in search of adventure. The library door was open, and both little kittens heard a queer rustling noise on the big library table. Up on a chair they jumped, then up on the table, just in time to see a little mouse darting under some papers. The mouse thought the kittens would not know where it was if it kept very still; but there was its tail in plain sight.

The kittens were so frightened they did not know what to do. They tried to remember all their mother had taught them about catching a mouse, but they could only watch that tail, scarcely breathing for fear it would move. The mother cat came just then, hunting for her kittens. When she saw them keeping so still she knew there must be something the matter.

In the picture she is all ready to spring upon the mouse as soon as he moves, so she can be sure to catch him. How confident she looks, and how pleased she is that the kittens found the mouse and will help her catch it! The kittens are so excited it is doubtful whether they can help very much; but if she can persuade one of them just to touch that tail, then all will be a scramble. More likely they will all keep so still that the mouse will think he is alone and come out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Fascinating Tale_]

Which cat do you think will catch him? The little white kitten is the more daring of the two, as she stands there, paws braced wide apart, all ready to spring either toward the mouse or away from it. She is quite undecided which to do. The little black kitten wants to see all that is going on, but at a safe distance.

How those books and papers will be scattered about when the old cat jumps for the mouse! The ink bottle is in a very bad place, although the inkstand looks as if it were a heavy one and would be hard to overturn, even if the cat does jump on it.

Did you ever watch a cat catch a mouse? My! how fast that mouse will have to run if he is to get away! Notice the long, graceful, curving body of the mother cat, and how she holds her head alert as she plans how to catch the mouse.

Although these three cats are all still for the moment, we are made to feel that each is about to do something, and we wonder just what that something will be. Notice the different colors of the cats' fur and of the books placed carelessly in a row. Let us think how this table will look in just a few moments.

A FASCINATING TALE

Books and ink, and kittens three In this picture we can see All upon a table wide.

What is that from them would hide?

Little mouse, your tail's too long; It's your fault; if they do wrong.