Once Upon A Time...

A couple of weeks ago, at the end of a stretch that included some intense tantrums and insane toddler demands, Ada offered up her first independently conceived and recited short story:



Once upon a time, there was a pillow.

And she went into the forest. To pick some more pillows from the picking bog.

Then it rolled down the hill. And it cracked open!

And inside was a mother chick and a baby chick.


After a pause, I asked: Is there more? Or is that the end?


That is the end.

** * ** * **

Something in the combination of the words "pillow" and "hill" reminded me of the Robert Louis Stevenson poem The Land of Counterpane. When I googled the poem title, I found an ebook of children's poems and stories called "Project Gutenberg's Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories." This ebook is not only free, but given the copyright status of the material and the Guterberg project, the distribution and free use of the materials is allowed and encouraged. All of which is to say that I happily put that picture in this post, with no guilt whatsoever.