events are the links of a
sequence of the closest kind; in point of time and of cause they follow as
immediately as it is possible for events to follow. There are no gaps, and
no complications of plot requiring a return on the road.

A second common characteristic appears on briefest examination. As you run
over the little stories you will see that each event presents a distinct
picture to the imagination, and that these pictures are made out of very
simple elements. The elements are either familiar to the child or
analogous to familiar ones. Each object and happening is very like
everyday, yet touched with a subtle difference, rich in mystery. For
example, the details of the pictures in the Goldilocks story are parts of
everyday life,--house, chairs, beds, and so on; but they are the house,
chairs, and beds of three bears; that is the touch of marvel which
transforms the scene. The old woman who owned the obstinate pig is the
centre of a circle in which stand only familiar images,--stick, fire,
water, cow, and the rest; but the wonder enters with the fact that these
usually inanimate or dumb objects of nature enter so humanly into the
contest of wills. So it is, also, with the doings of the three little
pigs. Every image is explicable to the youngest hearer, while none
suggests actual familiarity, because the actors are not children, but
pigs. Simplicity, with mystery, is the keynote of all the pictures, and
these are clear and distinct.

Still a third characteristic common to the stories quoted is a certain
amount of repetition. It is more definite, and of what has been called the
"cumulative" kind, in the story of the old woman; but in all it is a
distinctive feature.

Here we have, then, three marked characteristics common to three stories
almost invariably loved by children,--action, in close sequence; familiar
images, tinged with mystery; some degree of repetition.

It is not hard to see why these qualities appeal to a child. The first is
the prime characteristic of all good stories,--"stories as is stories";
the child's demand for it but bears witness to the fact that his
instinctive taste is often better than the taste he later develops under
artificial culture. The second is a matter of common-sense. How could the
imagination create new worlds, save out of the material of the old? To
offer strange images is to confuse the mind and dull the interest; to
offer familiar ones "with a difference" is to pique the