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.
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- Author: Thornton W. Burgess
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Reddy turned the corner quickly. Just as he put up one paw to push the gate open, a low but decidedly ugly growl made him jump back with every hair of his coat standing on end. His first thought was of Bowser. It must be that Bowser had returned! Believing in safety first, Reddy did not stop to see who had growled, but ran swiftly a short distance. Then he looked behind him. Over at the gate of Farmer Brown’s henyard he could see a dark form. At once Reddy knew that it wasn’t Bowser the Hound, for it had a bushy tail, while Bowser’s was smooth. Reddy knew who it was. It was Old Man Coyote.
XII The Cleverness of Old Man CoyoteWho thinks the quickest and the best
Is bound to win in every test.
The meeting of Reddy Fox and Old Man Coyote just outside the gate to Farmer Brown’s henyard had been wholly unexpected to both. Reddy had been so eager to get inside that gate that when he turned the corner at the henyard he hadn’t looked beyond the gate. If he had looked beyond, he would have seen Old Man Coyote just coming around the other corner. As for Old Man Coyote, he had been so surprised at sight of Reddy Fox that he had growled before he had had time to think. He was sorry the very instant he did it.
“That certainly was a stupid thing to do,” muttered Old Man Coyote to himself, as he watched Reddy Fox run away in a panic. “I should have kept out of sight and let him open that gate and go inside first. There may be traps in there, for all I know. When there’s likely to be danger, always let someone else find it out for you if you can.” Old Man Coyote grinned as he said this.
Reddy Fox sat down at a safe distance to watch what Old Man Coyote would do. Inside, Reddy was fairly boiling with disappointment and anger. He felt that he hated Old Man Coyote more than he hated anybody else he knew of. He hated him, yet there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. He didn’t dare fight Old Man Coyote. All he could do was to sit there at a safe distance and watch.
The gate of the henyard was open two or three inches. For a long time Old Man Coyote stood looking through that little opening. Once or twice he thrust his nose out and sniffed cautiously around the gate, but he took the greatest care not to touch it. Finally he turned and trotted away towards the Green Forest.
Reddy sat right where he was, so surprised that he couldn’t even think. He waited a long time to see if Old Man Coyote would return, but Old Man Coyote didn’t return, and at last Reddy cautiously crept towards that unlocked gate. “I do believe that fellow didn’t know enough to push that gate open,” muttered Reddy to himself. “I always supposed Old Man Coyote was smart, but if this is an example of his smartness I’ll match my wits against his any day.”
All this time Old Man Coyote was not so far away as Reddy thought. He had gone only fat enough to make sure that Reddy couldn’t see him. Then, creeping along in the blackest of the Black Shadows, he had returned to a place where he could watch Reddy.
“It’s queer that gate should have been left unlocked,” thought Old Man Coyote. “It may have been an accident, and again it may have been done purposely. There may not be any danger inside; then again there may. I’m not going to push that gate open or step inside when there is someone to do it for me. I’ll just leave it for Reddy Fox to do.”
XIII The Mischievous Little Night BreezeA little act of mischief can
Upset the deepest, best laid plan.
Reddy Fox was very pleased with himself as he thought how much smarter he was than Old Man Coyote. He didn’t waste any time in pushing open the henyard gate. It didn’t enter his head that there might be a trap inside. He was so eager to find out if the little door where in daytime the hens ran in and out of the henhouse was open, that he jumped inside the henyard just as soon as the gate was pushed open wide enough for him to enter.
Old Man Coyote, watching from his hiding place, saw Reddy push the gate open and enter the henyard. “So far, so good,” muttered Old Man Coyote to himself. “There isn’t any trap just inside that gate, so it will be safe enough for me to follow Reddy in there. I think I’ll wait a bit, however, and see what luck he has in getting into the henhouse. If he catches a chicken he won’t stop to eat it there. He won’t dare to. All I need do is to wait right here around the corner, and if he brings a chicken out, I’ll simply tell him to drop it. Then I will have the chicken and will have run no risk.” You see Old Man Coyote is a very, very clever old sinner.
So Old Man Coyote peeked through the wires and watched Reddy Fox, who thought himself so much smarter, steal swiftly across to the henhouse and try that little door. It was closed, but it wasn’t fastened, as Reddy could tell by poking at it.
“It is just a matter of time and patience,” muttered Reddy to himself. “If I keep at it long enough, I can work it open.” You see Reddy had done that
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