Green Forest Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) đź“•
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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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The hunter lost patience. He tried to order Farmer Brown’s boy away. But the latter said he had as much right there as the hunter had, and the hunter knew that this was so. Finally he gave up, and muttering angrily, he went back to his blind. Again the gun of Farmer Brown’s boy frightened away the Ducks just as they were coming in.
The next afternoon there was no hunter nor the next, though Farmer Brown’s boy was there. The hunter had decided that it was a waste of time to hunt there while Farmer Brown’s boy was about.
XXVIII Blacky Has a Talk with Dusky the Black DuckDoubt not a friend, but to the last
Grip hard on faith and hold it fast.
Every morning Blacky the Crow visited the rushes along the shore of the Big River, hoping to find Dusky the Black Duck. He was anxious, was Blacky. He feared that Dusky or some of his flock had been killed, and he wanted to know. You see, he knew that Farmer Brown’s boy had been shooting over there. At last, early one morning, he found Dusky and his flock in the rushes and wild rice. Eagerly he counted them. There were nine. Not one was missing. Blacky sighed with relief and dropped down on the shore close to where Dusky was taking a nap.
“Hello!” said Blacky.
Dusky awoke with a start. “Hello, yourself,” said he.
“I’ve heard a terrible gun banging over here, and I was afraid you or some of your flock had been shot,” said Blacky.
“We haven’t lost a feather,” declared Dusky. “That gun wasn’t fired at us, anyway.”
“Then who was it fired at?” demanded Blacky.
“I haven’t the least idea,” replied Dusky.
“Have you seen any other Ducks about here?” inquired Blacky.
“Not one,” was Dusky’s prompt reply. “If there had been any, I guess we would have known it.”
“Did you know that when that terrible gun was fired there was another terrible gun right over behind those bushes?” asked Blacky.
Dusky shook his head. “No,” said he, “but I learned long ago that where there is one terrible gun there is likely to be more, and so when I heard that one bang, I led my flock away from here in a hurry. We didn’t want to take any chances.”
“It is a lucky thing you did,” replied Blacky. “There was a hunter hiding behind those bushes all the time. I warned you of him once.”
“That reminds me that I haven’t thanked you,” said Dusky. “I knew there was something wrong over here, but I didn’t know what. So it was a hunter. I guess it is a good thing that I heeded your warning.”
“I guess it is,” retorted Blacky dryly. “Do you come here in daytime instead of night now?”
“No,” replied Dusky. “We come in after dark and spend the night here. There is nothing to fear from hunters after dark. We’ve given up coming here until late in the evening. And since we did that, we haven’t heard a gun.”
Blacky gossiped a while longer, then flew off to look for his breakfast; and as he flew his heart was light. His shrewd little eyes twinkled.
“I ought to have known Farmer Brown’s boy better than even to suspect him,” thought he. “I know now why he had that terrible gun. It was to frighten those Ducks away so that the hunter would not have a chance to shoot them. He wasn’t shooting at anything. He just fired in the air to scare those Ducks away. I know it just as well as if I had seen him do it. I’ll never doubt Farmer Brown’s boy again. And I’m glad I didn’t say a word to anybody about seeing him with a terrible gun.”
Blacky was right. Farmer Brown’s boy had taken that way of making sure that the hunter who had first baited those Ducks with yellow corn scattered in the rushes in front of his hiding place should have no chance to kill any of them. While appearing to be an enemy, he really had been a friend of Dusky the Black Duck and his flock.
XXIX Blacky Discovers an EggBlacky is fond of eggs, as you know. In this he is a great deal like other people, Farmer Brown’s boy for instance. But as Blacky cannot keep hens, as Farmer Brown’s boy does, he is obliged to steal eggs or else go without. If you come right down to plain, everyday truth, I suppose Blacky isn’t so far wrong when he insists that he is no more of a thief than Farmer Brown’s boy. Blacky says that the eggs which the hens lay belong to the hens, and that he, Blacky has just as much right to take them as Farmer Brown’s boy. He quite overlooks the fact that Farmer Brown’s boy feeds the biddies and takes the eggs as pay. Anyway, that is what Farmer Brown’s boy says, but I do not know whether or not the biddies understand it that way.
So Blacky the Crow cannot see why he should not help himself to an egg when he gets the chance. He doesn’t get the chance very often to steal eggs from the hens, because usually they lay their eggs in the henhouse, and Blacky is too suspicious to venture inside. The eggs he does get are mostly those of his neighbors in the Green Forest and the Old Orchard. But once in a great while some foolish hen will make a nest outside the henhouse somewhere, and if Blacky happens to find it the black scamp watches every minute he can spare from other mischief for a chance to steal an egg.
Now Blacky knows just what a rogue Farmer Brown’s boy thinks he is, and for this reason Blacky is very careful about approaching Farmer Brown or any other man until he has made sure that he runs
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