Category: Short Story

Categories
1830s Fable Short Story

The Misfortunes of a Yellow Bird

The Misfortunes of a Yellow Bird

By “C.”
Annotations by Celia Hawley
William Home Lizars. Yellow-Crowned Weaver, Plate 32 from Birds of West Africa.
Print from William Swainson engraving, brush and watercolor on paper, 1837. Cooper
Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, N.Y.

When I gained the first knowledge I had of my own existence, I found myself resting very comfortably in the hollow of a neat little house, built of divers[1] materials, such as straw, thread, mud, &c., all being very ingeniously worked together, giving the nest the two needful qualities of strength and warmth. To the truth of the former quality I can give full testimony; having employed myself during my long confinement after birth, in the vain attempt of pulling to pieces my rustic abode.

I had several brothers and sisters for my companions. For many days we lay very quietly, and moved only to receive the food which our kind parents brought us. The foliage of the tree in which our nest was built was very thick, and afforded a delightful shelter from the sun, and reflected mild and pleasant light upon our just opening eyes. After a few days our bodies became strangely metamorphosed, and we appeared like new creatures, in our dress of yellow, ornamented with black edgings. I was much surprised at the sudden change, yet pleased; for truly we were rather uncouth looking animals at our first appearance. So happy were we now, with our splendid garb, that we began to chirp and made many awkward attempts to get out of our nest; we at last succeeded in our efforts to gain the edge of it, and felt quite proud at our wonderful achievement; and our parents sung merrily over us. In a few days, these fond parents taught us to spread our wings and fly to the nearest branches of the tree in which we lived; and soon we were able to fly to all the neighboring trees.

Julius Bien. Yellow-Breasted Chat. Chromolithograph on paper, copy
after John James Audubon, 1860. Smithsonian American Art Museum
and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.

We were perfectly happy; our days were spent in singing, and flying, and feasting ourselves from the newly budded trees around us, and our nights in quiet and undisturbed repose. We dreamed not of the evil that was awaiting us; but it came; and those happy days which I once knew, will I fear never return.

One beautiful morning we had all been amusing ourselves, by hopping from branch to branch, and flying from tree to tree, until we were quite tired, – and had returned to our nests. We had just quietly laid ourselves to rest, and our parents had gone in search of food, when we heard a loud noise beneath the tree, and immediately the bough, on which our home was built, began to shake so violently, that we were every moment in danger of being thrown down. We were all much terrified, but remained in our nest. In that we had ever found a refuge from the storm, from the birds who were our enemies, and from every other danger which had before threatened us. We therefor clung to it now as our only hope. Presently something was thrown over our nest, which left us in perfect darkness; we were almost dead with fright, and our nest was torn rudely from the tree. Then, for the first time, we heard the sound of the human voice; it sounded harsh and stunning to our ears, and only increased our fear. We were carried some distance with great care. We were then uncovered, but where we were I knew not; fright prevented my knowing.

The first thing I was conscious of, was being separated from my dear brothers and sister, and being placed in a very odd thing, which the people round me called a cage. I looked about as soon as I was placed in this, and found myself surrounded by numerous boys, some talking loudly, others screaming until I nearly fainted with fear. My prison house looked so slight and frail, that I imagined by beating it, I might force my way out. So I commenced flying against the sides, until seeing it had no effect, I sunk down exhausted by fright and exertion. Many of the boys thought I was dying, and begged my release; but the cruel boy who stole me from my happy home, would not grant their request.

J. Alden Weir. Children Burying a Bird. Oil on canvas mounted on fiberglass, 1878.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

For weeks I was kept a prisoner; they treated my kindly — but it was slavery. Oh! how I sighed for my own dear home, for my native woods, with their beautiful shades and the dear music of my woodland loves! Oh, freedom is sweet to the bird, as well as to man! The boys seemed to love me; I could have loved them, had they given me liberty.

Since my captivity there are many kind faces that look at me, as though they wish to set me free; there is one who has often begged for my release, but my hard-hearted master will not grant it. He says he wishes to keep me; and for what wicked purpose think you? What, but, as he says, to lure other birds into his snares! So I have had in my cage a trap fixed, well baited: and it has been my duty to sing, and thus call the birds in to the trap.

One day a cat passed my cage, and the friendly creature, beast though she is, would have opened for me a passage out of my prison, had not the boys, seeing her designs, driven her away. When my imprisonment will end I know not. I live only in the hope that my master’s heart will be softened by my unhappy situation, and that he will set me free. Had I a human voice I would tell him how cruel he is thus to imprison me, and to make my confinement the means of reducing others into the same slavery. And if he would not hear my complaint, I would then appeal to his master, and try to touch his heart with my story, and beg of him to reprove my hard hearted keeper and open the door of my prison, and then might I hope to return to my beautiful home in the tree!

WIlliam Home Lizars. Yellow White-Eye, Plate 3 from Birds of Western Africa. Print from William Swainson engraving, brush and watercolor on paper, 1837. Cooper
Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, N.Y.
C. “THE MISFORTUNES OF A YELLOW BIRD.” The Juvenile Miscellany 6, no. 3 (JulY 1834): 299.
Contexts

Excerpt from History.com’s U.S. Slavery: Timeline, Figures & Abolition:

“By the 1830’s there were more and more voices joining the anti-slavery cause. In the North, the increased repression of southern Black people only fanned the flames of the growing abolitionist movement. From the 1830s to the 1860s, the movement to abolish slavery in America gained strength, led by free Black people such as Frederick Douglass and white supporters such as William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the radical newspaper The Liberator, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who published the bestselling anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Children’s magazines such as The Juvenile Miscellany were vehicles for much of the abolitionist sentiment of the time.

Resources for Further Study
  • The child’s anti-slavery book: containing a few words about American slave children and stories of slave-life by Julia Colman and Matilde G. Thompson has this passage: “Children, you are free and happy. …Thank God! thank God! my children for this precious gift. … But are all children in America free like you? No, no! I am sorry to tell you that hundreds of thousands of American children are slaves. Though born beneath the same sun and on the same soil as yourselves, they are nevertheless SLAVES. Alas for them! … I want you to remember one great truth regarding slavery, namely, that a slave is a human being, held and used as property by another human being, and that it is always A SIN AGAINST God to thus hold and use a human being as property!”
  • Aesop’s Fables: Timeless Stories with a Moral
  • Flocabulary: Video and vocabulary games for the fables of Aesop
Contemporary Connections

We can make a connection between the anonymous 19th-century writer of this piece and a well-known 20th-century one. Maya Angelou chose the same allegorical image, that of a caged bird, for the title of her critically acclaimed 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Angelou was an American poet and author who was the recipient of many honors, among them the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[1] diverse

Categories
1910s Native American Short Story

How Morning Star Lost Her Fish

How Morning Star Lost Her Fish

By Mabel Powers/Yeh Sen Noh Wehs[1]
Annotations by Jessica Cory
A Native American woman stands in traditional dress with braids in front of her body. Below her are little people who are shirtless and appear to also be Native.
Original image for “How Morning Star Lost Her Fish” included in the 1917 edition of Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children, page 199.

Once the Little People, the Indian fairies, ran with the Red Children through the woods, and played with them beside the streams. Now they are not often seen, for the white man drove them out of the woods with the Indians, and away from the waters, with his big steam noises.

But before steamboats and great mills were on the streams, the Little People were there. They were often seen paddling their tiny canoes, or sliding down the great rocks on the banks. They loved to slide down a bank where one rock jutted out, for then they had a big bounce. They also liked to sport and jump with the fish.

There was a young Indian girl whose name was Morning Star. She was called Morning Star because her face was so bright, and she was always up early in the morning.

Morning Star lived with her father in a comfortable wigwam by a river. Every day she would get up with the sun, and run down to the river where the great rocks were, to catch fish for breakfast.

Morning Star caught her fish in a basket. At night, she would go and fasten her basket between the rocks, in a narrow place of the stream. Then, when the fish swam through in the night, they would get caught in it, and Morning Star would find plenty of fish waiting for her. In the morning, she would take the basket of fish back to the wigwam, and soon the smell of fish frying on hot coals would come from the lodge.

Never since Morning Star began to fish with her basket, had Chief Little Wolf, her father, had to wait for his fish breakfast before starting on the chase. But one morning, neither Chief Little Wolf nor Morning Star breakfasted on fish. This is how it happened.

On this morning, the Indian girl was up as usual with the sun. She ran down the river just as the Great Spirit lifted the sun’s smiling face. Morning Star had such a light heart that she was glad just to be alive, and she sang a song of praise as she ran. All true Indians at sunrise lift their arms and faces to the sun, and thank the Great Spirit that he has smiled upon them again.

Happy and fleet as a deer, Morning Star ran on until she came to the great rocks. There she saw a whole tribe of tiny little folk gathered about her basket. Some of them were perched on the sides of the basket, laughing and singing. Others were lifting the fish from it and throwing them into the stream. Still others were opening and closing the splints of the basket for the fish to slip through.

Morning Star knew that these tiny folk were the Jo gah oh. She knew also that these Little People were friends of the fish. They know every twist of a fish net and every turn of a hook. Often they have been known to set fish free, and to guide them into deep, quiet places, far away from the men who fish.

Morning Star called to the Little People and begged them not to let all the fish go. Then she began to climb down the rocks, as fast as she could. The little Chief called up to her, “Fish, like Indian girls, like to be alive.”

Then he told the Little People to keep on setting the fish free. When Morning Star reached her basket, a few fish were still in it. She put out her hand to take them from the Little People,—and not a fish, nor a Jo gah oh was to be seen. The Little People had darted into the rocks, for they go through anything, and the fish had slipped through the tiny spaces between the splints of the basket.

Morning Star heard the laughter of the Little People echo deep within the rocks, for they like to play pranks with the earth children. And far down the stream, she saw the fish leap with joy at being still alive. She took up her empty basket and went back to the wigwam.

That morning for breakfast, Morning Star baked corn cakes on the hot coals. As she ate the hot cakes, she thought they tasted almost as good as fish.

Ever after, when Morning Star saw a fish leap from the stream, she remembered what the Jo gah oh had said: “Fish, like Indian girls, like to be alive.”

Powers, Mabel. “How Morning Star Lost Her Fish” in Stories the Iroquois tell their children, 196-200. New York: American Book Company, 1917.

[1] Mabel Powers was a white settler who was made an honorary or adopted member of the Snipe Clan of the Seneca Indians, part of the Iroquois (now most commonly called Haudenosaunee) Confederacy. She was given the name Yeh Sen Noh Wehs following her adoption.

Contexts

The stories in this collection were told to Powers by members of several tribes that are part of the Haudenosaunee and unlike other anthropologists and ethnographers of her time, she listed all tribal members who contributed stories and included the signatures of all six tribal chiefs, essentially authenticating and endorsing this collection of stories. While its generally advisable to avoid “as told to” or “as told by” narratives in Native American Studies, largely because the audience is unaware of the editing process, I chose to include this work because it does appear to have the endorsement of the tribal nations involved.

Acknowledgements of contributors to Powers’ collection, page 8.
This document lists all 6 chiefs and their signatures.
List of signatures of the chiefs of the 6 tribes that are part of the Haudenosaunee (also called Iroquois) Confederacy, pages 9-10.
Resources for Further Study
Pedagogy

It is important to note that anthropological or ethnographic work does have a contentious history in regard to Native peoples, as it is an extension of colonization and frequently results in the exploitation of Indigenous populations.

Categories
1920s Short Story

The House of Broken Things

The House of Broken Things

From The Brownies’ Book, 1921

By Peggy Poe
Annotations by Kathryn T. Burt

Down South in Georgia, it had been springtime so long that it was nearly time for summer. Old Mrs. Southwind[1] had decided to stay right at her work, and this had made Old Mr. Wolfwind[2] afraid to make any more visits to Georgia, so he stayed up North and howled about.

Armstrong, Margaret Neilson. White Lilies. 1911. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/393664.

All that day Boy, Waddy, and Happy had played in the big yard and garden and they had done some very naughty things, things that boys who love the kind of God who gave them the beautiful things you find in a garden should never do; but at last Happy went home to supper and to feed his black rooster and red hen. When he came back the little path to Colonel Jones’ house was very bright. Miss Lady Moon was smiling and she seemed so near that Happy was sure he could touch her if he had a long pole; her moonbeams were so brilliant that it made the cotton patch seem like day time. When he went around to the big, front steps there was Boy, Waddy, and Mrs. Colonel Jones in her white dress and she looked like one of the white lilies herself. Boy and Waddy were as clean and shiny as the moonbeams. Happy was glad Mammy Tibbets had let him wear his white suit, and he was smiling finer than the biggest moon could ever smile. Mrs. Colonel Jones cuddled Happy down by her side and they all sat very still listening to the mocking bird who sings at night down in Georgia; but after awhile Mrs. Colonel Jones sighed, just like she had thought of something not very nice.

“Let us go for a walk in my garden,” said she, taking Waddy’s hand while Boy and Happy followed her softly, because it seemed as if in that moon-lighted garden no one wanted to make a noise. They passed the fig tree, where the baby figs come out without any blossom dress on like other baby fruits. They went very softly pass the bushes where the yellow roses seemed to rain down; they passed the bed where the pansies live and each small purple face was dimpled with dew; then they came to the corner where the great white lilies grow with their golden throats.

“Oh! how I do love my lilies,” said Mrs. Colonel Jones stopping over to touch a very large lily, and behold—the white petals opened wider and wider until that lily was a beautiful white house and Miss Lady Moon flashed her most brilliant moonbeam into it so that it seemed like day time. Mrs. Colonel Jones gave a little cry of surprise and then just when the boys were going to ask about it, there stepped up Old Mr. Toad, dressed in a beautiful green and gray suit,—but one of his feet was bound up in a cloth and he limped terribly, as he came forward bowing to Mrs. Colonel Jones, and the lady who liked all the creatures in her garden felt very sorry for him.

“Oh, Friend Toad! what has happened to you?”

“Well, today when I was guarding your watermelon patch, a little boy came along and hit me with a stick, I don’t know why he did it. I was only guarding your melons from the worms so you would have some nice ones.”

“How could anyone hurt our best garden friend? Do you know his name?”

“I do not, dear lady; but won’t you go into the Lily House? White Butterfly lives there. Generally it’s a very nice house to visit, but to-night it is a House of Broken Things. I am guard at the door, so I will let you in.”

“And the three boys, may they come in?”

“Oh yes, but I am afraid they won’t enjoy it.”

They all walked in, but when Happy passed the poor, hurt toad he hung his head in shame. At the door of the Lily House, White Butterfly met them. She wore a nurse’s apron and carried medicines, spoons, and bandages. She seemed very sad too.

“Oh! I am so glad to have visitors; it seems so sad in here. Most of the time my Lily House is very gay, but today so many dreadful things have happened in the garden that I just had to turn my house into a House for Broken Things, but now that you and the little boys have come, maybe you can help me cheer things up.” The White Butterfly went very softly down the white hall with its golden carpet as soft as pussy fur. Soon she stopped by the side of a wee white bed, and there lay two tiny baby Caterpillars, only you couldn’t see much of them for bandages and tears, they were hurt so.

The next bed had poor old Beetle in it; he seemed so very ill with a crushed leg. “Old Beetle had been working in the wood pile when three little boys came along and pelted him with sticks and smashed his leg; it’s so badly hurt that I am not sure I can ever cure him,” said White Butterfly. In the next bed they found Lightening Bug, only he would never be a real lightening bug again, because, you see, when he was carrying his lantern about the garden to make it lighter until Miss Lady Moon came, a very small fat boy came and caught him and put him under a glass and the glass had broken his beautiful lantern off, so that now, even though he would get well, he never could help light the pretty garden again.

Original Brownies’ Book illustration by Hilda Rue Wilkinson

The White Butterfly said to Mrs. Colonel Jones, “This is very sad indeed. These little caterpillars were crossing the garden walk this morning, hunting some weeds, to eat, when a boy came along and put his hard shoe right down on them and broke most every part of them. I do so hope they get well.” Boy hid his head in his hands. They went to another bed, and there lay a little Honey Bee, and White Butterfly told about here! “Miss Honey Bee had heard you say that you hoped you would have some real good honey this year, so she went into the trumpet flower, and as she was coming out with a great load of honey, a boy whacked her with a stick and broke her wing. I think maybe it will be better tomorrow, but I know one thing, if folks don’t stop hurting the bees, there won’t be any honey for the hot biscuits.” Waddy looked over at Miss Honey Bee and hung his head in shame.

In the next bed lay Granddaddy Longlegs, propped up with milkweed pillows; one of his legs was gone, broken off, and he seemed to be in such pain. The White Butterfly gave him a week drop of medicine and said to Mrs. Colonel Jones:

“Granddaddy was out under the house steps asleep when a boy came and said to him: ‘Granddaddy gray, tell me where the cows are, or I’ll kill you right away.’ Now you know Granddaddy is so old that he couldn’t possibly know where the cows are, so he couldn’t tell that boy where they were, and that cruel boy dropped a rock on him and cut off his leg.”

“Oh! how terrible!” said Mrs. Colonel Jones.

In the next bed were three baby Ants, asleep; White Butterfly said someone had dug up their house and they had no home to go to. But it was the very next bed that made the boys feel sad. In it lay Lady Bug’s two wee children; they were crying very hard. White Butterfly told about them.

Original Brownies’ Book illustrations by Hilda Rue Wilkinson

“Someone saw Lady Bug when she was cleaning house for the strawberries and called ‘Lady But fly away home; your house is on fire and your children will burn!’ Of course this frightened Lady Bug very much and just as she started to run home, someone put her into a box and put a lid on it and carried it off. Now her children were alone at home, and when their mother didn’t come home, they started out to find her. I was afraid something would hurt them so I brought them here, and after giving them some supper I put them to bed, but the poor little things just keep crying for their Mama.”

Just then Happy stepped up beside the bed and took a little box from his pocket and opened it. Out hopped Lady Bug right among her babies. My! what a happy family they were, but Happy wasn’t very happy, he was so ashamed. He hid his fat little face behind Mrs. Colonel Jones’ dress.

As they walked along the white hall, White Butterfly began crying every so softly, for there in a small bed lay a small yellow Butterfly. It looked like a piece of fine lace. One of its pretty wings was sadly broken.

“This is my little boy,” said White Butterfly. “I have fixed his wing the best I could. Oh! do you think he will get well?”

Mrs. Colonel Jones stooped over the baby butterfly and looked at the broken wing. “Why yes; I think it will be well in a short time. There, don’t worry! but how did this happen?”

“Oh! it was awful! You see, I told him to play out in the pansy bed, as our garden has always been so safe and happy. I never thought anything could happen to him. He had just fluttered down to kiss a pansy girl, when a boy flopped his hat on him and broke his wing. I got him home right away. I hope he’ll get well.”

Boy hung his head, and Mrs. Colonel Jones put her silk shawl over his face. As that was all there was in the Lily House, they bid White Butterfly good night, and thanked poor Mr. Toad for letting them in. They went to the house, and Mrs. Colonel Jones gave each boy a large slice of chocolate cake.

The next day, the boys went back to the garden and looked for that Lily House, but although they hunted the garden over and looked into all the lilies, they could not find one that looked like a house. But really there was no need for a Lily House of Broken Things in that garden anymore. For whenever Boy, Happy, and Waddy started to chase or hurt the tiny creatures who lived in the garden, they always remembered the “House of Broken Things” and how sad it was, so they stopped harming the helpless things, the little people of the garden.

Poe, PEggy. 1921. “The House of Broken Things.” The Brownies’ Book, 2, no, 1, (Jan): 8-10.

[1] In an earlier story by Peggy Poe, “The Watermelon Dance,” Old Mrs. Southwind is described as “a very gay lady” who “spends most of her time visiting.” Because she tends to come and go whenever she feels like it during the Winter and Spring, the Georgia folks have to “wait for her to get through visiting before they plant their good things” (263).

[2] In”The Watermelon Dance,” we learn that old Mr. Wolfwind is so named because he comes “howling out of the north” when Old Mrs. Southwind goes visiting and tears up Mrs. Colonel Jones’ garden.

[3] Happy first appears in the very first issue of The Brownies’ Book in a story called “Pumpkin Land.”

Contexts

The Brownies’ Book was a popular children’s magazine edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, who hoped the periodical would “teach Universal Love and Brotherhood for all little folk—black and brown and yellow and white” as well as highlight the voices of writers of color. The magazine covered a wide variety of genres and topics, ranging from serious social and political news in the “As the Crow Flies” columns to nursery rhymes and illustrations. As Katharine Capshaw Smith observes, Du Bois made an effort to include pieces which sought to “inspire activism in child readers” and to make space for young writers in the monthly installments (161). However, there was also plenty of escapist stories and poems for young readers to enjoy, and writers like Peggy Poe particularly enjoyed combining southern folk lore and dialects with fairy tale tropes. Although scholars like Fern Kory have critiqued Poe’s work for attempting to fit black narratives into white literary traditions and creating a “problematic hybrid of the most didactic sort of fairy story and a conventional plantation story” (103) the significance of these early attempts to carve out a space for black fantasy stories cannot be overstated.

Resources for Further Study
  • Poe, Peggy. 1920. “Pumpkin Land.” The Brownies’ Book, 1, no. 1 (Jan): 3-7.
  • Poe, Peggy. 1920. “The Watermelon Dance.” The Brownies’ Book, 1, no. 9 (Sep): 263-265.
  • Smith, Katharine Capshaw. 2014. “The Crisis Children’s Page, The Brownies’ Book, and the Fantastic.” In Protest and Propaganda: W. E. B. Du Bois, the Crisis, and American History, edited by Amy Helene Kirschke and Phillip Luke Sinitiere, 156-172. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.
  • Kory, Fern. 2001. “Once upon a Time in Aframerica: The ‘Peculiar’ Significance of Fairies in the Brownies’ Book.” Children’s Literature 29, 91-112. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Pedagogy

Peggy Poe’s short story asks us to see animals as people with families, homes, and dreams just like us. If you want more ideas for talking with the young people in your life about the importance of compassion for animals, check out the following resources:

Categories
1860s 1890s 1910s Fable Short Story

The Belly and the Members

The Belly and the Members: A Fable [1]

By Æsop
Annotations by Ian McLaughlin
Wenceslaus Hollar. The Belly and the Members. Engraving from The Fables of Aesop
by John Ogilby, 1665. Fisher Library at the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.

The Members of the Body once rebelled against the Belly. “You,” they said to the Belly, “live in luxury and sloth, and never do a stroke of work; while we not only have to do all the hard work there is to be done, but are actually your slaves and have to minister to all your wants. Now, we will do so no longer, and you can shift for yourself for the future.” They were as good as their word, and left the Belly to starve. The result was just what might have been expected: the whole Body soon began to fail, and the Members and all shared in the general collapse. And then they saw too late how foolish they had been.

Original illustration from Aesop’s Fables printed at the Chiswick Press by C. Whittingham, 1814.

In the former days, when the Belly and the other parts of the body enjoyed the faculty of speech, and had separate views and designs of their own, each part, it seems, in particular for himself and in the name of the whole, took exception at the conduct of the Belly, and were resolved to grant him supplies no longer.

They said they thought is very hard that he should lead an idle good-for-nothing life, spending and squandering away, upon his own ungodly guts, all the fruits of their labor; and that, in short, they were resolved, for the future, to strike off his allowance, and let him shift for himself as well as he could. The Hands protested they would not lift up a finger to keep him from starving; and the Mouth wished he might never speak again if he took in the least bit of nourishment for him as long as he lived; and, say the Teeth, may we be rotten if ever we chew a morsel for him for the future. This solemn league and covenant was kept as long as anything of that kind can be kept, which was until each of the rebel members pined away to the skin and bone, and could hold out no longer. Then they found there was no doing without the Belly, and that, as idle and insignificant as he seemed, he contributed as much to the maintenance and welfare of all the other parts as they did to his.

Application

This fable was spoken by Menenius Agrippa, a famous Roman consul and general, when he was deputed by the senate to appease a dangerous tumult and insurrection of the people. The many wars that nation was engaged in, and the frequent supplies they were obliged to raise, had so soured and inflamed the minds of the populace, that they were resolved to endure it no longer, and obstinately refused to pay the taxes which were levied upon them. It is easy to discern how the great man applied this fable. For, if the branches and members of a community refuse the government that aid which its necessities require, the whole must perish together. The rulers of a State, as idle and insignificant as they may sometimes seem are yet as necessary to be kept up and maintained in a proper and decent grandeur, as the family of each private person is in a condition suitable to itself. Every man’s enjoyment of that little which he gains by his daily labor depends upon the government’s being maintained in a condition to defend and secure him in it.

Menenius Agrippa, a Roman consul, being deputed by the senate to appease a dangerous tumult and sedition of the people, who refused to pay the taxes necessary for carrying on the business of the state, convinced them of their folly by delivering to them the following fable.

My friends and countrymen, said he, attend to my words. It once happened that the members of the human body, taking some exception at the conduct of the Belly, resolved no longer to grant him the usual supplies. The Tongue first, in a seditious speech, aggravated their grievances; and after highly extolling the activity and diligence of the Hands and Feet, set forth how hard and unreasonable it was that the fruits of their labor should be squandered away upon the insatiable cravings of a fat and indolent paunch, which was entirely useless, and unable to do anything towards helping himself.

Original illustration from Aesops Fables, Together with the Life of Aesop by Mons. De Meziriac, 1897.

This speech was received with unanimous applause by all the members. Immediately the Hands declared they would work no more; the Feet determined to carry no farther the load with which they had hitherto been oppressed; nay, the very Teeth refused to prepare a single morsel more for his use. In this distress the Belly besought them to consider maturely, and not foment so senseless a rebellion. There is none of you, says he, but may be sensible that whatsoever you bestow upon me is immediately converted to your sue, and dispersed by me for the good of you all into every limb. But he remonstrated in vain; for during the clamors of passion the voice of reason is always unregarded. It being therefore impossible for him to quiet the tumult, he was starved for want of their assistance, and the body wasted away to a skeleton. The Limbs, grown weak and languid, were sensible at last of their error, and would fain have returned to their respective duty, but it was now too late; death had taken possession of the whole, and they all perished together.

We should well consider, whether the removal of a present evil does not tend to produce a greater.

Æsop. “The belly and the members,” in Aesop’s FAbles, Translated by V. S. Vernon Jones. New York: AVenel books, 1912. www.gutenberg.org/files/11339/11339-h/11339-h.htm

Æsop. “The belly and the members,” inThe Fables of Æsop With a Life of the Author, 175. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1868. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000938579&view=1up&seq=197.
Aesop. “The belly and the members,” in Aesop’s Fables: Together With the Life of Aesop, by Mons. de meziriac, 51. Chicago: The Henneberry Company, 1897. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015005534220&view=1up&seq=53.

[1] Because this fable is short and has many translations, I’ve included three versions.

Contexts

Æsop is likely the most famous fabulist of all time. His stories have been used to teach children the values of many cultures over many centuries. Many famous children’s stories, such as “The Tortoise and the Hare“, “City Mouse and Country Mouse“, and “The Lion and the Mouse” are based on his work.

Resources for Further Study
  • For more information on what makes a story a fable, see this introduction to the text by G.K. Chesterton.
Contemporary Connections

There are countless picture books and anthologies based on Æsop’s works. The Library of Congress has turned “The Aesop for Children: with Pictures” by Milo Winter (1919) into an interactive ebook.

Categories
1920s African American Fairies Fairy Tale Short Story

Gyp: A Fairy Story

Gyp: A Fairy Story

By A. T. Kilpatrick
Annotations by Catherine Bowlin
Cover of the first volume of The Brownies' Book. Photograph of a little African American girl in white costume, crown, and ballet shoes.
Battey. Untitled Cover of The Brownies’ Book. 1920. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/22001351/>.

ONCE there was a little fairy named Gyp. The king of fairies gave all of the little fairies work to do. And Gyp’s work for that day was to paint apples. 

Early that morning Gyp went to the forest to work. He carried all his paints, but more of red and brown because he had a lot of apples to paint red and also the leaves to tint brown.

He soon came to the trees, and leaving the other paints on the ground, he carried the red up to paint apples.

The little children who lived in the forest thought it about time to find ripe apples, and some of them went out that same morning to get some. 

After roaming a bit they came to the tree where Gyp was painting and found all his paints on the ground. 

They began to amuse themselves by playing with the paints, until the wind blew some apples down.

But they soon tired and fell asleep. Gyp had noticed them meddling with his paints and saw that they liked red and brown best.

When he came down and found all asleep, he wondered what joke to play on them that would be pleasing. So after deciding on many things and changing, he determined to paint their faces, knowing they would be delighted.

So he painted their faces,––some red like the apples, and the others brown like the leaves. When they woke and looked at each other, they were startled and amazed. They went home never knowing why their faces changed colors.

Now their descendants still live. Those children who were at home remained white, but the little red children still love to roam about in the forest and on the plains.

The little brown children can be found most everywhere, carrying happiness and sunshine to all they see.

So when you read of the work of the little brownies, don’t forget the good fairy Gyp.

Brunner, Arnold William. Forest. 1891, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, CC0. https://www.si.edu/unit/cooper-hewitt.
Kilpatrick, A. T. “Gyp: A Fairy Story.” The Brownies’ Book, ed. W. E. B. Du Bois, vol. 1, no. 1. (1920): 31. www.loc.gov/item/22001351/.
Resources for Further Study
  • In the introduction to the 2019 volume of The Lion and The Unicorn, a contemporary journal that studies children’s literature, Katharine Capshaw and Michelle Martin draw parallels between The Brownies’ Book and the Black Lives Matter movement. Full citation for this source: Capshaw, Katharine, and Michelle H. Martin. “Introduction: From The Brownies’ Book to Black Lives Matter: One Hundred Years of African American Children’s Literature.” The Lion and the Unicorn, vol. 43, no. 2. (2019): v-vii. ProQuest, https://login.libproxy.uncg.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2330797298?accountid=14604, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/uni.2019.0015.
  • For an analysis of fairies in The Brownies’ Book, see Fern Kory’s article, “Once Upon a Time in Aframerica: The ‘Peculiar’ Significance of Fairies in the Brownies’ Book” in the 2001 volume of Children’s Literature. Full citation for this source: Kory, Fern. “Once upon a Time in Aframerica: The “Peculiar” Significance of Fairies in the Brownies’ Book.” Children’s Literature, vol. 29. (2001): 91-112. ProQuest, https://login.libproxy.uncg.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/195575070?accountid=14604.
Pedagogy

Possible discussion questions:

  • How does the positive diction in this story foreshadow its purpose?
  • Can this text be considered an origin story? Why or why not?
  • What does this story suggest about racial difference?

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