Showing posts with label Noodlehead. Show all posts

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Hale - Peterkins Celebrate the Fourth - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

I went looking to find stories about fireworks as many locations have canceled them this year. Instead I found many stories about a greater than usual amount of individuals setting them off (often illegally) along with gunshots. Since those stories would be possibly inappropriate for re-publishing or telling, I started to check my own collection. Like a firework exploding in the air I was delighted to discover America's own "noodleheads", Lucretia Hale's delightful Peterkin family, celebrated the Fourth of July in true Peterkin fashion.

For those who might need reminding, the cast of characters includes Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin, their youngest sons just known as "the little boys" and their friends; the older, well educated (but clueless) sons, Solomon John and Agamemnon; daughter, Elizabeth Eliza, of approximately the same age; and their neighbors, the Bromwicks. Their Hired Girl, Amanda, is given most of the holiday off, and the sensibility of "the lady from Philadelphia" is also absent. Since this is 1876, here's the Philadelphia Centennial at Independence Hall.

Independence Hall Centennial Celebration July 4, 1876

The Peterkins had earlier in the book visited the lady from Philadelphia at the Centennial exposition. Maybe that's why, in this story the lady "was not well, and her doctor had prescribed quiet." There's not much quiet in this story. The family seems determined to have every form of Independence Day insanity. There's even the fire engines which on a normal day here in small towns are part of a parade. There's no official parade, but cannons and bells and chaos aplenty. It's enough to make whatever is happening near you seem tame.

Leave it to the Peterkin family to find a way to make it memorable.

Of course this blog is also viewed by storytelling friends abroad. This year t-shirt makers all over the internet have had fun with a British view of our holiday saying variations on this theme.

While looking for a good graphic of that bit of cheek in the "mother tongue" I found the perfect response.

Stay safe, but have fun over this unusual holiday weekend.
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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain." The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century. My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience. Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week. This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here. (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.) Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection. I have long recommended it and continue to do so. He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories. There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:

- David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

- Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

- Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

- Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

- Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ . It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016 and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

- Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

- World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/
- Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links. Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job. In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it. Possibly searches maintained it. Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine. It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html. I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Saturday, May 2, 2020

Shelter in Place - Week 6 / Montgomery - The Councillors of Lagos - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

The coming week originally was scheduled to start of with two celebrations: Star Wars Day (May the Fourth Be With You!...take your pick of the dry factual Wikipedia article or kids activities, including a puppet and story) and then Cinco de Mayo...a day normally filled with celebrating. Go to History.com for colorful and very thorough coverage, including videos and excellent related content (you have to keep scrolling down to get to that extra material). Still it's not as much fun as the celebrations normally part of this day often confused with Mexican Independence Day (yes, History.com explains this).

I was surprised to find only two Public Domain gatherings of Mexican folklore from the days when ethnologists first went out to the far corners of the world to collect stories. Lewis Spence in 1913 produced The Myths of Mexico & Peru, but I found the stories dry and barely anecdotal. Then I discovered Charles M. Skinner's Myths & Legends Beyond Our Borders. Two-thirds of the book is on Canada before offering slightly over a hundred pages devoted to Mexico. Skinner wrote several books of folklore, focusing on the United States and also one about our "New Possessions and Protectorate" ("Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines", as well as Hawaii long before it became a state). Fortunately you can read these books online at the Internet Archive. I may not always have been tempted by his stories, mythology isn't really my favorite folklore, but in Beyond Our Borders there were some besides today's story I liked, especially two that may appear here in the future. One was about foolish young alligators and another reminds me of an Asian tale about a wen, an abnormal skin growth, taken from a good man and eventually given to a greedy man.

This is a tale of Mexican politicians, as are many Noodlehead tales about foolish leaders, but my intent is NOT political, whether it be about those responsible for roads or higher. It's strictly for fun and we can always use more of that. There's more Noodlehead resources after the story.

Today's story is a type called a "Noodlehead tale" and I heartily recommend going to a page of Noodlehead resources by fellow storyteller, Barry McWilliams, who is commonly called Eldrbarry. He points out the difference beyond the "wise fool" like the Hodja or Tyl Eulenspiegel and the true Noodleheads like those leaders of Chelm and Gotham. Beyond that comprehensive look at Noodleheads, a teacher, Susan Antonelli, who believes in "creative teaching designed to engage childhood wonder", has a fun page about the Epossumondus picture books by Coleen Salley along with other ideas for how to creatively use Noodlehead stories. She mentions also the Amelia Bedelia easy readers in her suggestion of ways to think about and create Noodlehead stories.

Thankfully Montgomery's books can be read even with libraries being closed. I also always end the "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" segments with plenty of online folktales. Oh, and by the way, right before this story is "The Mischievous Cocktail" for your celebrating. I found it interesting as my Prohibition program includes the explanation that cocktails became popular then to disguise the taste of bootleg liquor, especially bathtub gin. Montgomery in 1899 gives the Mexican claim to the Toltecs in the eleventh century inventing cocktails long before Columbus arrived.

Staying with today's story, clearly the politicians aren't the only Noodleheads, just more visible.
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Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection. I have long recommended it and continue to do so. He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories. There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:

- David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

- Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

- Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

- Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

- Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Saturday, February 22, 2020

Three Sneezes (An Estonian Folktale)

I remember when talking about our family friends, the Vannaks, and their celebration of Estonian Independence Day, my younger daughter, Jamie said, "Stonia? Who wants to go to Stonia?"

The country of Estonia may not be covered well in United States Social Studies classes. (Rant alert: Don't get me started on the whole topic of how the subjects of History, Geography, and Civics now are lumped together as one subject so that today's students receive less information in all three subjects!) Estonia is a country east of the southern half of Sweden, but across the Baltic Sea and just south of Finland with it's smaller Gulf of Finland (and Estonians speak the second-most-spoken Finnic language) yet it touches Russia (the former U.S.S.R.). That touch -- one of many centuries of foreign rule by Germans, Danes, Swedes, Poles, and Russians -- caused the most recent celebration which goes back to their brief independence after World War I. They were definitely Vikings and I confess I can just picture the father, Vaivo, retaining that Viking spirit in his passion. I fondly remember times with their family, including when the Soviet Union broke up enough for the Estonian Independence Day to truly be celebrated both in Estonia and their home in Toledo, Ohio.

What got me thinking about all of this again was, of all things, the terrible turn that the Lunar New Year took at the start of this month. I mentioned earlier this month that one of the beliefs behind Chinese New Year is that whatever you do at the start of the year will keep recurring all year long. The head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now believes this will prove true with the Corona Virus staying with us beyond this year.

Along the way while planning this month's possible responses to that unfortunate development I discovered an Estonian tale not in my Public Domain anthologies, but retold in a blog no longer produced, but was syndicated by Andrews McMeel Universal. I originally contacted one of the authors, Amy Friedman, and she pointed me in their direction for permission. She was sure they would grant it, but it took a while (rather like the development of the unfortunate virus now abbreviated as COVID-19, as it actually was first reported on December 31, 2019). Fortunately we can sit at our computers and other digital devices and enjoy a tale stretching back to a style of story about silliness known as Noodlehead stories. Let laughter and smiles still stretch around the internet with this bit of humor to celebrate Estonian Independence Day on February 24th.

Tell Me a Story by Amy Friedman and Meredith Johnson

Three Sneezes (An Estonian Folktale)

August 12, 2012

Once upon a time, in a little village not far from Tallinn, on the Gulf of Finland, there lived a farmer whose name was Kalev. Kalev and his wife, Johanna, had many children. As time passed, their children married and had children of their own. After some time, the children began to ask their father who would inherit his farm.

The eldest child was Kati, and she thought the farm would be hers. But Paavo, the oldest son, said, "Shouldn't you pass your farm to me, your oldest son?"

The children began to bicker, particularly at the holidays when they visited. Over the meal, they talked as if Kalev was no longer there:

"It will be mine, won't it, Father?" asked Kati.

"No, mine," pleaded Paavo.

Kalev and Johanna listened closely, and late at night they talked about what would become of their farm and their children. Kalev was worried, for he did not know when he would die, and he had made no decision.

"I'll go see the Sage of Finland," he announced to his wife. "I'll ask him how many years I have to live, and then I will know when to decide."

"A wise idea," Johanna agreed, and so Kalev set off to see the sage.

The sage looked just once at Kalev, and he solemnly said, "You will know death has come when you have sneezed three times."

And as Kalev traveled back home, he was deeply saddened, for he could not stop thinking about sneezing. Just as he walked into his own yard, he froze. There was the honeysuckle vine, and the scent always tickled his nose. Sure enough, before he could stop himself, he sneezed.

"Oh no!" he cried. "Just two more left."

He dared not tell Johanna the news, and so that night he avoided her questions, and early the next morning he set off for the mill to grind some grain. While he was there, working away, the dust from the mill tickled his nose, and he sneezed once again.

He sighed deeply. "Just one more left," he said under his breath, and he ran out of the mill as fast as he could.

Alas, the next morning he realized he had to pick up the sacks of flour he had left behind, and so he walked back to the mill. He walked carefully inside, lifted a sack, threw it over his shoulder and raced for the door.

He rushed out into the warm summer air, but his nose was full of dust. He knew he was going to sneeze. He tried to stop himself.

He inhaled and cried, "No!"

But it was too late. He let out an enormous sneeze.

He placed the sack upon the ground and groaned, "My time has come too soon!"

But he knew he must accept his fate, and so he lay upon the ground and stretched out. He closed his eyes.

The miller's hogs noticed the sack of flour upon the ground, and they rushed through the open gate to the sack and began to rip it open.

When Kalev heard their grunting, he turned his head, opened his eyes and looked at them.

He sighed deeply. "If I were alive, I'd punish you for this, you scoundrels!" he shouted. "Alas, I am dead."

And he closed his eyes.

The miller heard the grunting of his hogs, and he rushed outside to investigate. There he saw Kalev on the ground. He stood over him.

"Why are you lying here?" he asked. "How could you let the hogs go wild?"

Kalev opened his eyes once more. "What can I do?" he sighed. "I'm dead. If I were alive, of course, I'd drive away your hogs, but a dead man can only rely on those who are alive to do his will."

"Ah," said the miller, grinning ear to ear. "So you are dead. That's very sad."

The miller reached for his whip and raised it over his head, preparing to flog his hogs, but when they heard the crack of the whip, they ran away.

The miller whirled that whip to the ground, and it grazed Kalev's arm. The jolt rushed through his body, and he sat up fast.

"Oh my!" he cried with joy. "You've brought me back to life! What a friend you are! If not for you, I'd still be dead."

And feeling happier than he ever had, he heaved what was left of the flour onto his back and hurried home.

From that day on, whenever his children began to argue, he stood up and roared, "I'll hear no talk of death in my presence!"

Kalev and Johanna lived happily ever after for many more years.

This story: TELL ME A STORY © by Amy Friedman & Meredith Johnson. Reprinted with permission of ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. All rights reserved.

I know many of my readers enjoy a good story, so you might enjoy a trip to the Tell Me A Story archives. You will see some years where Amy Friedman and Meredith Johnson no longer created the site. It actually ran from August of 1996 to the end of 2017, so click on a year for more stories. Nothing lasts forever, with or without sneezing.

May you stay well!
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Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection. I have long recommended it and continue to do so. He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories. There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:

- David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

- Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

- Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

- Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

- Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Hale - The Peterkins' Christmas Tree - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

A lot of people have their Christmas tree up, but I'll bet that, no matter how much trouble it may have caused, it was nothing like today's story of "The Peterkins' Christmas Tree."

The illustration to the left comes from a website called Garden Therapy; Better Living Through Plants and the article there on "How to Make a Nine-Foot Grinch Tree" . Of course that refers back to the Doctor Seuss story about How the Grinch Stole Christmas! including that long tree which the Grinch's poor dog, Max, pulled up the mountain. (The book's Wikipedia link gives some interesting inside views about it.) If you go to the article on making one, you will see not only how to do it, but various versions of it.

My reason for muddying the storytelling waters here with a decidedly not Public Domain tale (even though it's become a major Christmas tradition in many formats) is the way it clearly touches the ceiling, a ceiling complete with the mitered corners put in place by a carpenter.

The Peterkins did precisely that, calling a carpenter to literally raise the roof -- or at least the ceiling -- to accommodate their tree. Back on November 23rd I gave the first glimpse of the Peterkins with their story of "Why the Peterkins Had a Late Dinner." I've never told that story, although maybe in the future I will. Today's story, however, will once again be part of my Victorian Christmas program when I tell as the Hired Girl. This year I've particularly had the program spotlight the botanical aspects of Christmas in my stories because I'm telling to a Garden Club, but this story is from 1880 and would have definitely been popular around the turn of the century when my Hired Girl persona would look back on the way the holiday changed due to the influence of old Queen Victoria who barely made it into the 20th century by dying on January 22, 1901.

I gave a hint of the Peterkins with their own Wikipedia article which said:

The Peterkins were a large family who were extremely intelligent, but didn't have a lick of common sense among them. Whenever they were confronted with a problem that had a simple solution and a complex one, they unerringly went for the complex one--the simple one never occurred to them. They were usually rescued by their neighbor, the Lady from Philadelphia, known for her wisdom; which usually amounted to the plain, commonsense solution that had been staring them in the face and which any normal person would have seized on immediately.

I also gave various links about the author and her famous relatives and ancestor, but if you have the least bit of curiosity look up the New England Historical Society article about Lucretia Hale's inspiration! It's somewhat like Doctor Seuss (Theodore Geisel) confessing about his creation of the Grinch. I find it's always fun to know how an author or any kind of artist lets something lead to a creative work.

I believe strongly in keeping these stories in the Public Domain, but also recognize they need people remembering them. In the 1960s the book was republished and a whole new audience discovered them. I've not seen Elizabeth Spurr's The Peterkins' Christmas, as a picture book illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin, but the book information says Spurr adapted it. I've also just discovered the 11/23 posting of "Why the Peterkins Had a Late Dinner" has been similarly adapted by Spurr and Halperin as a "companion book", The Peterkins' Thanksgiving.
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Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection. I have long recommended it and continue to do so. He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories. There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:

- David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

- Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

- Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

- Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

- Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Thanksgiving NOT Turkey Day + Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Next week is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. and I trust, no matter how bad things may have been, you can find something or someone giving you a reason to be thankful. Even the process for "counting your blessings" is good for us, so that's why I've developed a pet peeve at the current trend of calling it "Turkey Day"!!!

A quick check at Wikipedia on Thanksgiving shows eleven other countries set aside a similar day. For that reason I went looking to find an image saying "Thanksgiving NOT Turkey Day." There were lots about calories and not having turkey, but the only place with my "Thanksgiving NOT Turkey Day" feelings were at a site whose humor is often found shared on Facebook, https://www.someecards.com. They had not one, but two I want to share:

and

That last one really has my back up. People working in retail deserve the day to be with their families if they wish. Sure police, fire departments, hospitals, and the military may be needed, rotating work schedules, but surely sales can wait or be handled without making people go to work for a dubious sale of expensive items.

In all fairness I waited a bit late (being in a show tends to do that to me) to ask permission from the folks at Someecards. They've never gone after people sharing their humor on Facebook, so I hope their understanding includes my posting those two illustrations. Their "About" page says:

Someecards launched in 2006 as a uniquely voiced ecard site, and has grown into one of the most widely shared and trusted humor brands on the Web. Every day our team of writers creates new ecards, articles, and original content, resulting in over 500MM monthly views on our site and in social media. We also make some of the Web's most engaging and successful branded advertising programs, which you can learn more about here. Thanks for reading this entire paragraph!

Also on their website they have products to sell their cards, wine, coasters, calendars (to see their satire regularly), and Mad Libs. That last part especially appeals to me as I sometimes use that style of audience participation and especially appreciated this. Yes, I can understand the need to explain the parts of speech when working with children, but with adults?!?

Well this is turning into a bit of an ad for Someecards and it's time to get to a bit of storytelling.

In December my "Hired Girl" persona lets me bring Victorian Christmas traditions and stories. One of my favorites is Lucretia Peabody Hale's series of Noodlehead types of stories about a family, the Peterkins, and their Christmas tree. I'll say more about Ms. Hale and the Peterkins when I give that story. (Next week? We'll see -- the often used parental reply.) I will point out that she was the daughter of Nathan Hale, Senior, who was a journalist and a nephew of the Revolutionary War hero hung as a spy and given in a story here back in 2017. Before giving a Peterkin story that fits the coming holiday, yet isn't their Christmas tree tale, I went looking to learn more about the origin of the U.S. making Thanksgiving a national holiday. Along the way I bumped into yet another Hale, Sara Josepha Hale, best known as the author of the nursery rhyme, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" -- please note it was not a turkey. She married into the Hale name and I've no doubt there's a distant link with a Nathan Hale somewhere in the family of David Hale, her husband. However it happened, she wrote to five presidents trying to make it a national holiday. Finally President Lincoln agreed, seeing it as a unifying time after the stress of the American Civil War. May we all find a way to reestablish any family unity on Thanksgiving.

Today's story certainly includes a unified family, however silly they may be. While reviewing that Peterkins tale I mentioned, I found today's story. It isn't specifically about Thanksgiving, although when their stories were published in the late 1860s and through the mid-1880s the national holiday did exist.

The Peterkins are well described in that Wikipedia article as:

The Peterkins were a large family who were extremely intelligent, but didn't have a lick of common sense among them. Whenever they were confronted with a problem that had a simple solution and a complex one, they unerringly went for the complex one--the simple one never occurred to them. They were usually rescued by their neighbor, the Lady from Philadelphia, known for her wisdom; which usually amounted to the plain, commonsense solution that had been staring them in the face and which any normal person would have seized on immediately.

With that in mind only one further comment may be needed. Only if you live in a large old home or work somewhere with a "dumb-waiter" will you probably understand the term for the term for a small freight elevator meant to carry objects between floors and, in a home, usually going to the kitchen or dining room. (For more than you probably want to know, but with photos, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbwaiter.)

May your own patience be rewarded with many stories and may you have a happy Thanksgiving.
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Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection. I have long recommended it and continue to do so. He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories. There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:

- David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

- Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

- Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

- Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

- Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html