Green Meadow Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (good short books .txt) š
Description
Thornton W. Burgess was an American naturalist and the author of dozens of books for children, the most enduring of which are Old Mother West Wind and The Burgess Bird Book for Children. Burgess was a passionate twentieth-century conservationist who dedicated his life to teaching children and their families about the importance of the natural life of the northern North American forest.
The Green Meadow Stories compilation is made up of four distinct but entwined tales: those of Happy Jack Squirrel, Mrs. Peter Rabbit, Bowser the Hound, and Old Granny Fox. Through the adventures of these focal characters readers are introduced to the wider territory of the Green Meadows, the Green Forest, and the Smiling Pond as well as to the animalsā Great World.
The animals of Burgessās stories are anthropomorphized, undoubtedly, but not caricatured: these are not the twee creatures of Disney cartoons. Their behaviour is explained in ways that would be understandable to a human childāthis is fiction, after allābut Burgessās ālittle people of the forestā are not simply humans dressed in fur and feathers. The original illustrations in Burgessās books (by Harrison Cady, not reproduced in this edition) show the animals wearing clothes, but Burgessās own descriptions of animals are more natural and metaphorical, and less fantastic. For example, he describes Chatterer the Red Squirrel, āwho always wears a red coat with vest of white,ā a compact way of communicating the look of a squirrel that many of todayās children will never have seen with their own eyes. Less pleasantly, it is Peter Rabbitās fur and flesh that is rent when Hooty the Owl tears Peterās ācoatā one night on the Old Pasture.
Burgess has tremendous respect for the creatures he depicts, as well as for their natural home. While the presentation of the Green Meadow is hardly āNature, red in tooth and claw,ā it is surprisingly unsentimental. Peter Rabbit, for example, lives a highly anxious life under threat from the many predators who would enjoy having him for dinner; similarly, Happy Jack Squirrel experiences days and nights of terror when Shadow the Weasel discovers Happy Jackās home and hunts him relentlessly. During a long, hard winter, Granny Fox and Reddy Fox come close to starving, and Old Man Coyote leads Bowser the Hound on a dangerous chase that may result in one or the other dying. Despite other fanciful, sentimental elements of storytelling, Burgess does not sugarcoat prey/predator relationships or the precarity of wild animalsā lives.
Burgess is a clear conservationist in his representations of hunting. The animals are highly aware of hunters and their ādreadful guns.ā It is a notable moment in this collection when Farmer Brownās Boy decides he will no longer use his gun to harm the little people of the Green Meadow and the Green Forest. The stories are also notable in their detailed representation of a largely intact forest, something few children in the twenty-first century will experience.
On the other hand, these are books for children, and they contain plenty of sweetness and light. Animal pairingsāsuch as when Peter Rabbit meets the dainty Little Miss Fuzzytail, the future Mrs. Rabbitāare vague but sentimental and soon lead to proud new families of Rabbits, Ducks, Deer, and Owls. The ālittle peopleā celebrate the arrival of each springās babies, mark each otherās new relationships and homes, play together, and even help each other survive. They laugh, tease, and trick each otherāa fanciful interpretation of animal behaviour that could lead to a readerās life-long fascination with, and respect for, forest creaturesāand for generations of readers, they did just that.
The stories are also more didactic than most twenty-first-century authors would dare to be. There are morals associated with most stories, often attributed to the animal about whom the story is being told. Through this practical teaching, Burgess suggests a correspondence between how animals and humans live; but he consistently clarifies that animal intelligence is different from, but certainly no less than, human intelligence.
Unlike the bouncy rhyming verses of many of todayās childrenās books, Burgessās sentences have a somewhat old-fashioned cadence, creating the distinct and appealing music of traditional storytelling. Burgessās episodic chapters are eminently readable and particularly come to life when they are voiced by animated reading-aloud. For older readers looking for something different to share with children, or for new readers beginning to tackle āchapter books,ā the tales of the Green Meadow Stories collection are a delightful place to discover Burgess and his animal friends.
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- Author: Thornton W. Burgess
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Now Peter, as you know, had an old friend in the Old Pasture, Tommy Tit the Chickadee. One day Tommy took it into his head to fly down to the Green Meadows. There he found everybody wondering what had become of Peter Rabbit, for you remember Peter had stolen away from the dear Old Briar-patch in the night and had told no one where he was going.
Now one of the first to ask Tommy Tit if he had seen Peter Rabbit was Old Man Coyote. Tommy told him where Peter was and of the dreadful time Peter was having, Old Man Coyote asked a lot of questions about the Old Pasture and thanked Tommy very politely as Tommy flew over to the Smiling Pool to call on Grandfather Frog and Jerry Muskrat.
That night, after jolly, round, red Mr. Sun had gone to bed behind the Purple Hills, and the Black Shadows had crept over the Green Meadows, Old Man Coyote started for the Old Pasture, Now, he had never been there before, but he had asked so many questions of Tommy Tit, and he is so smart anyway, that it didnāt take him long to go all through the Old Pasture and to find the bull-briar castle of Old Jed Thumper, who was making life so miserable for Peter Rabbit, He wasnāt at home, but Old Man Coyoteās wonderful nose soon found his tracks, and he followed them swiftly, without making a sound. Pretty soon he came to a bramble-bush, and under it he could see Old Jed Thumper. For just a minute he chuckled, a noiseless chuckle, to himself. Then he opened his mouth and out came that terrible sound which had so frightened all the little people on the Green Meadows when Old Man Coyote had first come there to live.
āHa, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! Hee, hee, hee! Ha, ho, hee, ho!ā
Old Jed Thumper never had heard anything like that before. It frightened him so that before he thought what he was doing he had jumped out from under the bramble-bush. Of course this was just what Old Man Coyote wanted. In a flash he was after him, and then began such a race as the Old Pasture never had seen before. Round and round, this way and that way, along the cow paths raced Old Jed Thumper with Old Man Coyote at his heels, until at last, out of breath, so tired that it seemed to him he couldnāt run another step, frightened almost out of his senses, Old Jed Thumper reached his bull-briar castle and was safe.
Then Old Man Coyote laughed his terrible laugh once more and trotted over to the tumble-down stonewall in which his keen nose told him Peter Rabbit was hiding.
āOne good turn deserves another, and I always pay my debts, Peter Rabbit,ā said he. āYou did me a good turn some time ago down on the Green Meadows, when you told me how Granny and Reddy Fox were planning to make trouble for me by leading Bowser the Hound to the place where I took my daily nap, and now we are even. I donāt think that old gray Rabbit will dare to poke so much as his nose out of his bull-briar castle for a week. Now I am going back to the Green Meadows, Good night, Peter Rabbit, and donāt forget that I always pay my debts.ā
āGood night, and thank you, Mr. Coyote,ā said Peter, and then, when Old Man Coyote had gone, he added to himself in a shamefaced way: āI didnāt believe him when he said that he guessed we would be friends.ā
XX Little Miss Fuzzytail Whispers āYesāLove is a beautiful, wonderful thing.
Thereās nothing quite like it on all the green earth.
āTis love in the heart teaches birdies to sing,
And gives the wide world all its joy and its mirth.
Peter Rabbit was finding this out. Always he had been happy, for happiness had been born in him. But the happiness he had known before was nothing to the happiness that was his when he found that he loved little Miss Fuzzytail and that little Miss Fuzzytail loved him, Peter was sure that she did love him, although she wouldnāt say so. But love doesnāt need words, and Peter had seen it shining in the two soft, gentle eyes of little Miss Fuzzytail. So Peter was happy in spite of the trouble that Old Jed Thumper, the big, gray Rabbit who was the father of little Miss Fuzzytail, had made for him in the Old Pasture.
He had tried very hard, very hard indeed, to get little Miss Fuzzytail to go back with him to the dear Old Briar-patch on the Green Meadows, but in spite of all he could say she couldnāt make up her mind to leave the Old Pasture, which, you know, had been her home ever since she was born. And Peter couldnāt make up his mind to go back there and leave her, becauseā āwhy, because he loved her so much that he felt that he could never, never be happy without her. Then, when Old Jed Thumper was hunting Peter so hard that he hardly had a chance to eat or sleep, had come Old Man Coyote the Wolf and given Old Jed Thumper such a fright that for a week he didnāt dare poke so much as his nose out of his bull-briar castle.
Now, although Old Man Coyote didnāt know it, his terrible voice had frightened little Miss Fuzzytail almost as much as
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