Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/54

 new voice—one so much higher pitched that I am sure I should never have recognized it as my own, elsewhere—and I told the stories. The new voice carried, and under the conditions sounded wholly normal. The children grew quiet, and for nearly an hour we traveled together through fairy-land, across western prairies, along the streets of Hamelin town, into the Empire of Japan, and among the Korean folk. How we did enjoy it!

The incident taught me two things at least: one, the value of having an intimate knowledge of the stories to be told, so that no unexpectedness of conditions could cause them to take flight; the other, the necessity of being able to adapt oneself to unexpected conditions.

The need of adapting the story, or the mode of telling, to the requirements of the immediate occasion, can only be learned by watching your audience.

Be sure your voice reaches the farthest child in the room. You need not use a loud tone, but a little difference in the pitch will make a great difference in the carrying quality. If the children must exert themselves, hold themselves tense, in order to hear, they