Green Forest Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) 📕
Description
American naturalist and conservationist Thornton W. Burgess was the author of more than one hundred books for children; the best-remembered of these is Old Mother West Wind, which was originally written for his young son. Burgess also wrote dozens of books about the creatures of the northern North American forest, four of which are collected here as the Green Forest Stories.
This Green Forest Stories compilation focuses on Lightfoot the Deer, Blacky the Crow, Whitefoot the Wood Mouse, and twin bear cubs Woof-Woof and Boxer. Readers may have encountered these characters in other of Burgess’s stories about the “little people” of the Massachusetts forest. Burgess’s earliest ventures into animal fantasy are roughly contemporary with Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories and Beatrix Potter’s tales of various animals, and represent the most lasting American entry into this genre.
Animal fantasy is a sub-genre of children’s literature in which animals are anthropomorphized into human-like characters and use language like humans. It is often criticized by those who want readers to experience more realistic representations of animals and the natural world, but animal fantasies engage a millennia-old tradition, in the Western canon reaching back at least as far as Aesop’s Fables; animal characters feature in teaching stories for children (and adults) in cultures around the world. Burgess’s stories are intended for children in the early elementary grades. The challenges and triumphs of the “little people” in his stories will feel identifiable to many young readers, and the snippets of moralizing and authorial commentary interleaved with the actions of the plot reflect a teaching device with a long history.
In the late twentieth century, Burgess fell out of favour with teachers and librarians. This shift occurred in part due to changing tastes in literary style and in part due to a changing society. Burgess is entirely a writer of his time. Most of the animals he depicts are male, and many of the female animals who wander into the stories are more passive and more stereotyped than the kinds of representation preferred for girls today. (Such is not the case, however, of Old Granny Fox, who may be the smartest of the little people Burgess represents and certainly does not lack agency or self-determination.)
The style of Burgess’s storytelling is undeniably old-fashioned but still deserves consideration. Although the writing is often simple and plain, there are rhetorical flourishes that reveal the author’s attention to craft. In particular, Burgess’s use of formulaic expressions such as “jolly, round, bright Mr. Sun” and “the Merry Little Breezes” links these tales to an orality that stretches back to at least The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer (think of phrases such as “the wine-dark sea,” “rosy-fingered Dawn,” and “bright-eyed Athena”). Through his broader use of repetition and through onomatopoeia, Burgess underscores characteristics of his characters’ real-life forest counterparts—the way a chickadee calls, a squirrel scolds, or a rabbit lopes, for example.
In these stories, as in the Green Meadow Stories collection, we observe features that signal Burgess’s experience as a writer for periodicals and as an early radio broadcaster. Each chapter begins with reminders about the previous chapter, and chapters end with either a strong, propulsive conclusion or a traditional cliff-hanger. The chapters are generally quite short—a comfortable size to read as a bedtime story, and just long enough to hold a new reader’s attention without demanding too much of that reader’s energy. The strong narrative voice sounds distinctly like oral storytelling. One can almost imagine a small group of young people seated in a circle at the storyteller’s feet.
That image captures the essence of these animal tales. They are light, bright peeks into a complex and beautiful world, a world any girl or boy may want to pursue through study or personal explorations. As humanity faces the daily loss of animal species, stories that delight readers and listeners, that encourage them to learn about and respect the creatures of the non-human world, deserve our renewed attention and respect.
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- Author: Thornton W. Burgess
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“But they’ll come back after a night or so,” muttered Blacky, as he alighted in the top of a tree, the same tree from which he had watched the hunter the afternoon before. “They’ll come back, and so will that hunter. If he sees me around again, he’ll try to shoot me. I’ve done all I can do. Anyway, Dusky ought to have sense enough to be suspicious of this place after that warning. Hello, who is that? I do believe it is Farmer Brown’s boy. I wish he would come over here. If he should find out about that hunter, perhaps he would do something to drive him away. I’ll see if I can call him over here.”
Blacky began to call in the way he does when he has discovered something and wants others to know about it. “Caw, caw, caaw, caaw, caw, caw, caaw!” screamed Blacky, as if greatly excited.
Now Farmer Brown’s boy, having no work to do that morning, had started for a tramp over the Green Meadows, hoping to see some of his little friends in feathers and fur. He heard the excited cawing of Blacky and at once turned in that direction.
“That black rascal has found something over on the shore of the Big River,” said Farmer Brown’s boy to himself. “I’ll go over there to see what it is. There isn’t much escapes the sharp eyes of that black busybody. He has led me to a lot of interesting things, one time and another. There he is on the top of that tree over by the Big River.”
As Farmer Brown’s boy drew near, Blacky flew down and disappeared below the bank. Fanner Brown’s boy chuckled. “Whatever it is, it is right down there,” he muttered.
He walked forward rapidly but quietly, and presently he reached the edge of the bank. Up flew Blacky cawing wildly, and pretending to be scared half to death. Again Farmer Brown’s boy chuckled. “You’re just making believe,” he declared. “You’re trying to make me believe that I have surprised you, when all the time you knew I was coming and have been waiting for me. Now, what have you found over here?”
He looked eagerly along the shore, and at once he saw a row of low bushes close to the edge of the water. He knew what it was instantly. “A Duck blind!” he exclaimed. “A hunter has built a blind over here from which to shoot Ducks. I wonder if he has killed any yet. I hope not.”
He went down to the blind, for that is what a Duck hunter’s hiding-place is called, and looked about. A couple of grains of corn just inside the blind caught his eyes, and his face darkened. “That fellow has been baiting Ducks,” thought he. “He has been putting out corn to get them to come here regularly. My, how I hate that sort of thing! It is bad enough to hunt them fairly, but to feed them and then kill them—ugh! I wonder if he has shot any yet.”
He looked all about keenly, and his face cleared. He knew that if that hunter had killed any Ducks, there would be telltale feathers in the blind, and there were none.
XXIV Farmer Brown’s Boy Does Some ThinkingFarmer Brown’s boy sat on the bank of the Big River in a brown study. That means that he was thinking very hard. Blacky the Crow sat in the top of a tall tree a short distance away and watched him. Blacky was silent now, and there was a knowing look in his shrewd little eyes. In calling Farmer Brown’s boy over there, he had done all he could, and he was quite satisfied to leave the matter to Farmer Brown’s boy.
“A hunter has made that blind to shoot Black Ducks from,” thought Farmer Brown’s boy, “and he has been baiting them in here by scattering corn for them. Black Ducks are about the smartest Ducks that fly, but if they have been coming in here every evening and finding corn and no sign of danger, they probably think it perfectly safe here and come straight in without being at all suspicious. Tonight, or some night soon, that hunter will be waiting for them.
“I guess the law that permits hunting Ducks is all right, but there ought to be a law against baiting them in. That isn’t hunting. No, sir, that isn’t hunting. If this land were my father’s, I would know what to do. I would put up a sign saying that this was private property and no shooting was allowed. But it isn’t my father’s land, and that hunter has a perfect right to shoot here. He has just as much right here as I have. I wish I could stop him, but I don’t see how I can.”
A frown puckered the freckled face of Farmer Brown’s boy. You see, he was thinking very hard, and when he does that he is very apt to frown.
“I suppose,” he muttered, “I can tear down his blind. He wouldn’t know who did it. But that wouldn’t do much good; he would build another. Besides, it wouldn’t be right. He has a perfect right to make a blind here, and having made it, it is his and I haven’t any right to touch it. I won’t do a thing I haven’t a right to do. That wouldn’t be honest. I’ve got to think of some other way of saving those Ducks.”
The frown on his freckled face grew deeper, and for a long time he sat without moving. Suddenly his face cleared, and he jumped to his feet. He began to chuckle. “I have it!” he exclaimed. “I’ll do a little shooting myself!” Then he chuckled again and started for home. Presently he began to whistle, a way he has when he is in good spirits.
Blacky the Crow watched him go, and Blacky was well satisfied. He didn’t know what Farmer Brown’s boy was
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