Green Meadow Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (good short books .txt) đź“•
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.
Read free book «Green Meadow Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (good short books .txt) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Thornton W. Burgess
Read book online «Green Meadow Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (good short books .txt) 📕». Author - Thornton W. Burgess
Bowser crept in. In one corner he found some hay, and in this he curled up. It was cold, very cold, but not nearly as cold as outside that little house. So Bowser curled up in the hay and shivered and shook and slept a little and wished with all his might that he never had found the tracks of Old Man Coyote.
VI The Surprise of Blacky the CrowThe harder it is to follow a trail
The greater the reason you should not fail.
At all seasons of the year Blacky the Crow is something of a traveler. But in winter he is much more of a traveler than in summer. You see, in winter it is not nearly so easy to pick up a living. Food is quite as scarce for Blacky the Crow in winter as for any of the other little people who neither sleep the winter away nor go south. All of the feathered folks have to work and work hard to find food enough to keep them warm. You know it is food that makes heat in the body.
So in the winter Blacky is in the habit of flying long distances in search of food. He often goes some miles from the thick hemlock-tree in the Green Forest where he spends his nights. You may see him starting out early in the morning and returning late in the afternoon.
Now Blacky knew all about that river into which Bowser the Hound had fallen. There was a certain place on that river where Jack Frost never did succeed in making ice. Sometimes things good to eat would be washed up along the edge of this open place. Blacky visited it regularly. He was on the way there now, flying low over the treetops.
Presently he came to a little opening among the trees. In the middle of it was a little house, a rough little house. Blacky knew all about it. It was a sugar camp. He knew that only in the spring of the year was he likely to find anybody about there. All the rest of the year it was shut up. Every time he passed that way Blacky flew over it. Blacky’s eyes are very sharp indeed, as everybody knows. Now, as he drew near, he noticed right away that the door was partly open. It hadn’t been that way the last time he passed.
“Ho!” exclaimed Blacky. “I wonder if the wind blew that open, or if there is someone inside. I think I’ll watch a while.”
So Blacky flew to the top of a tall tree from which he could look all over the little clearing and could watch the door of the little house.
For a long time he sat there as silent as the trees themselves. Nothing happened. He began to grow tired. Rather, he began to grow so hungry that he became impatient. “If there is anybody in there he must be asleep,” muttered Blacky to himself. “I’ll see if I can wake him up. Caw, caw, ca-a-w, caw, caw!”
Blacky waited a few minutes, then repeated his cry. He did this three times and had just made up his mind that there was nobody inside that little house when a head appeared in the doorway. Blacky was so surprised that he nearly fell from his perch.
“As I live,” he muttered, “that is Bowser the Hound! It certainly is. Now what is he doing way over here? I’ve never known him to go so far from home before.”
VII Blacky the Crow Takes Pity on BowserBeneath a coat of ebon hue
May beat a heart that’s kind and true.
The worst of scamps in time of need
Will often do a kindly deed.
“Caw, ca-a-w!” exclaimed Blacky the Crow. Bowser looked up to the top of the tall tree where Blacky sat, and in his great, soft eyes was such a look of friendliness that it gave Blacky a funny feeling. You know Blacky is not used to friendly looks. He is used to quite the other kind. Bowser came out of the old sugar house where he had spent the night and whined softly as he looked up at Blacky, and as he whined he wagged his tail ever so slightly. Blacky didn’t know what to make of it. He had never been more surprised in his life. He didn’t know which surprised him most, finding Bowser ’way over here where he had no business to be, or Bowser’s friendliness.
As for Bowser, he had spent such a forlorn, miserable night, and he was so terribly lonesome, that the very sound of Blacky’s voice had given him a queer thrill. Never had he thought of Blacky the Crow as a friend. In fact, he never thought much about Blacky at all. Sometimes he had chased Blacky out of Farmer Brown’s cornfield early in the spring but that is all he ever had had to do with him. Now, however, lonesome and lost as he was, the sound of a familiar voice made him tingle all over with a friendly feeling. So he whined softly and wagged his tail feebly as he looked up at Blacky sitting in the top of a tall tree. Presently Bowser limped out to the middle of the little clearing and turned first this way and then that way. Then he sat down and howled dismally. In an instant Blacky the Crow understood; Bowser was lost.
“So that’s the trouble,” muttered Blacky to himself. “That silly dog has got himself lost. I never will be able to understand how anybody can get lost. I never in my life was lost, and never expect to be. But it is easy
Comments (0)