Green Meadow Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (good short books .txt) 📕
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 animals’ Great World.
The animals of Burgess’s 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 child—this is fiction, after all—but Burgess’s “little people of the forest” are not simply humans dressed in fur and feathers. The original illustrations in Burgess’s books (by Harrison Cady, not reproduced in this edition) show the animals wearing clothes, but Burgess’s own descriptions of animals are more natural and metaphorical, and less fantastic. For example, he describes Chatterer the Red Squirrel, “who always wears a red coat with vest of white,” a compact way of communicating the look of a squirrel that many of today’s children will never have seen with their own eyes. Less pleasantly, it is Peter Rabbit’s fur and flesh that is rent when Hooty the Owl tears Peter’s “coat” 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 “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” 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 Jack’s 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 animals’ lives.
Burgess is a clear conservationist in his representations of hunting. The animals are highly aware of hunters and their “dreadful guns.” It is a notable moment in this collection when Farmer Brown’s 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 pairings—such as when Peter Rabbit meets the dainty Little Miss Fuzzytail, the future Mrs. Rabbit—are vague but sentimental and soon lead to proud new families of Rabbits, Ducks, Deer, and Owls. The “little people” celebrate the arrival of each spring’s babies, mark each other’s new relationships and homes, play together, and even help each other survive. They laugh, tease, and trick each other—a fanciful interpretation of animal behaviour that could lead to a reader’s life-long fascination with, and respect for, forest creatures—and 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 today’s children’s books, Burgess’s sentences have a somewhat old-fashioned cadence, creating the distinct and appealing music of traditional storytelling. Burgess’s 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 “chapter books,” 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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“If you are a friend of Peter, then you are a friend of mine.” said little Mrs. Peter very prettily. “Have you seen anybody in this tangle of vines since you arrived? I am sure some friends of mine are here, but I haven’t been able to find them.”
“No,” said the stranger, who was, of course, Mistah Mocker the Mockingbird. “I haven’t seen anyone here, and I don’t think there has been anyone here but myself.”
“Oh, yes, indeed there has!” cried little Mrs. Peter. “I heard their voices, and I couldn’t possibly be mistaken in those, especially the beautiful voice of Veery the Thrush, I—I would like very much to find them.”
Mistah Mocker had the grace to look ashamed of himself when saw how disappointed little Mrs. Peter was. Very softly he began to sing the song of Veery the Thrush.
Little Mrs. Peter looked up quickly. “There it is!” she cried. “There”—she stopped with her mouth gaping wide open. She suddenly realized that it was Mistah Mocker who was singing.
“I—I’m very sorry,” he stammered. “I did it just for a joke and not to make you feel bad. Will you forgive me?”
“Yes,” replied little Mrs. Peter, “if you will come here often at shadow-time and sing to me.” And Mistah Mocker promised that he would.
XXVIII News from the Old Briar-PatchTo use your eyes is very wise
And much to be commended;
But never see what cannot be
For such as you intended.
Jenny Wren is a busybody. Yes, sir, she certainly is a busybody. If there is anything going on in her neighborhood that she doesn’t know about, it isn’t because she doesn’t try to find out. She is so small and spry that it is hard work to keep track of her, and she pops out at the most unexpected times and places. Then, before you can say a word, she is gone.
And in all the Old Orchard or on the Green Meadows there is not to be found another tongue so busy as that of Jenny Wren. It is sharp sometimes, but when she wants it to be so there is none smoother. You see she is a great gossip, is Jenny Wren, a great gossip. But if you get on the right side of Jenny Wren and ask her to keep a secret, she’ll do it. No one knows how to keep a secret better than she does.
How it happened nobody knows, but it did happen that when Peter Rabbit came home to the clear Old Briar-patch, bringing Mrs. Peter with him, Jenny Wren didn’t hear about it. Probably it was because the new home which she had just completed was so carefully hidden that the messengers sent by Peter to invite all his friends to call didn’t find it, and afterward she was so busy with household affairs that she didn’t have time to gossip. Anyway, Peter had been back some time before Jenny Wren knew it. She was quite upset to think that she was the last to hear the news, but she consoled herself with the thought that she had been attending strictly to her duties, and now that her children were able to look out for themselves she could make up for lost time.
Just as soon as she could get away, she started for the Old Briar-patch. She wanted to hear all about Peter’s adventures in the Old Pasture and to meet Mrs. Peter. But like a great many other busybodies, she wanted to find out all she could about Peter’s affairs, and she thought that the surest way to do it was not to let Peter know that she was about until she had had a chance to use her sharp little eyes all she wanted to. So when she reached the Old Briar-patch, she didn’t make a sound. It didn’t take her long to find Peter. He was sitting under one of his favorite bramble-bushes smiling to himself. He smiled and smiled until Jenny Wren had to bite her tongue to keep from asking what was pleasing him so.
“He looks tickled almost to death over something, but very likely if I should ask him what it is he wouldn’t tell me,” thought Jenny Wren. “I guess I’ll look around a bit first. I wonder where Mrs. Peter is.”
So leaving Peter to smile to his heart’s content, she went peeking and peering through the Old Briar-patch. Of course it wasn’t a nice thing to do, not a bit nice. But Jenny Wren didn’t stop to think of that. By and by she saw something that made her flutter all over with excitement. She looked and looked until she could sit still no longer. Then she hurried back to where Peter was sitting. He was still smiling.
“Oh, Peter Rabbit, it’s perfectly lovely!” she cried.
Peter looked up quickly, and a worried look chased the smile away. “Hello, Jenny Wren! Where did you come from? I haven’t seen you since I got back,” said he.
“I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to call before,” replied Jenny. “I know what you’ve been smiling about, Peter, and it’s perfectly splendid. Has everybody heard the news?”
“No,” said Peter, “nobody knows it but you, and I don’t want anybody else to know it just yet. Will you keep it a secret, Jenny Wren?”
Now Jenny was just bursting with desire to spread the news, but Peter looked so anxious that finally she promised that she would keep it to herself, and she really meant to. But though Peter looked greatly relieved as he watched her start for home, he didn’t smile as he had before. “I wish her tongue didn’t wag so much,” said he.
XXIX Jimmy Skunk Visits Peter RabbitIt’s hard to keep a secret which you fairly ache to tell;
So not to know such secrets is often quite as well.
On her way home from the Old Briar-patch, Jenny Wren stopped to rest in a bush beside
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