Today's Short Story by Rudyard Kipling

I was born on a Wednesday, and as a child I never liked the rhyme:

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child born on the Sabbath Day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.

What an awful thing for a child born on a Wednesday to carry around with her. Well, honestly, it didn't affect me very much, but I still think it's a mean little rhyme. :<) Because I was born on a Wednesday, I'm going to designate that day of the week for a children's story. Today's is How The Whale Got His Throat by Rudyard Kipling from his Just So Stories.

This three page story was originally published in 1902. Do you think children at the beginning of the twentieth century would have known what the phrase "infinite resource and sagacity" meant? I'm not sure they would now. I love how the narrator keeps referring to his "Best Beloved," surely a loving name for the child being read to. How nice for a child to hear as part of a story. This story is in a book we bought for our son when he was seven. Sadly, it is not a 1902 edition, but a 1987 edition. The illustrations are ridiculous. The Mariner is portrayed as an old, wiry man, while the words tell that it is alright with his "Mummy" to "paddle" his feet in the water. And when he gets out of the whale's throat, he goes home to his mother, gets married and lives happily ever after. I might just search out the old edition someday.