are guilty
of reading the close of a story before they have gone very far in it.
So with that in mind we have put down in brief form most of Robinson
Crusoe's important adventures during his twenty-eight years on the
desert island.

Here we also give three splendid stories from Chaucer's "Canterbury
Tales," which were supposedly told to one another by a party of
pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. According to our gentle author,
who was one of them, they stopped over night at a house in England
called the Tabard Inn, and here they passed the hours repeating fine
stories. Afterward Chaucer wrote these down in a book in quaint old
English. One might look at these words all day long and not know in
the least what what some of them meant, though they do hold such
beautiful tales.

Now about "Pilgrim's Progress." More than two hundred years ago a
tinker named John Bunyan was in jail, but one night this poor man left
his prison and wandered into the land of dreams. There he saw
wonderful sights and heard marvelous things, and as there was no one
to listen to his dream, John Bunyan wrote it down, and had it made
into a book. And this he called "The Pilgrim's Progress." It was about
the journey and adventures of a pilgrim and his companions. In our
version we have given most of the dream, but when the boys and girls
grow older they will want to read it all in Bunyan's own language, and
we hope this account will lead them to do so.

Shakespeare is a magic name to grown-ups, but to children it does not
mean much. All they know is, that sometimes this name is spelled on
the back of one fat volume, sometimes on three, sometimes on a dozen
or more, but of the inside they know almost nothing, and when they
hear persons say that Shakespeare is the greatest writer that ever
lived, they wonder about it. If they take down a volume containing one
of his plays, they think it very dull, but here in simple language we
present the stories of two of the most fairy-like and beautiful plays,
as retold for children by Charles and Mary Lamb.

DANIEL EDWIN WHEELER.

II

OLD-FASHIONED STORIES

There is much truth in the saying that "old things are best, old books
are best, old friends are best." We like to connect in thought our
best-loved books and our best-loved friends. A good friend must have
some of the wisdom of a good book, though good books often talk to us
with wisdom and also with humor and courtesy greater than any livi