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.
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
“It was nothing,” he muttered.
“It was a very great deal,” replied Granny. And then she changed the subject. “How would you like to eat a dinner of Bowser the Hound’s?” she asked.
XVII Granny Fox Promises Reddy Bowser’s DinnerTo give her children what each needs
To get the most from life he can,
To work and play and live his best,
Is wise Old Mother Nature’s plan.
Old Granny Fox asked Reddy how he would like to eat a dinner of Bowser the Hound’s, Reddy looked at her sharply to see if she were joking or really meant what she said. Granny looked so sober and so much in earnest that Reddy decided she couldn’t be joking, even though it did sound that way.
“I certainly would like it, Granny. Yes, indeed, I certainly would like it,” said he. “You—you don’t suppose he will give us one, do you?”
Granny chuckled. “No, Reddy,” said she. “Bowser isn’t so generous as all that, especially to Foxes. He isn’t going to give us that dinner; we are going to take it away from him. Yes, sir, we just naturally are going to take it away from, him.”
Reddy didn’t for the life of him see how it could be possible to take a dinner away from Bowser the Hound. That seemed to him almost as impossible as it was for him to climb or fly or dive. But he had great faith in Granny’s cleverness. He remembered how she had so nearly caught Quacker the Duck. He knew that all the time he had been away trying to find something for them to eat, old Granny Fox had been doing more than just rest her tired old bones. He knew that not for one single minute had her sharp wits been idle. He knew that all that time she had been studying and studying to find some way by which they could get something to eat. So great was his faith in Granny just then that if she had told him she would get him a slice of the moon he would have believed her.
“If you say we can take a dinner away from Bowser the Hound, I suppose we can,” said Reddy, “though I don’t see how. But if we can, let’s do it right away. I’m hungry enough to dare almost anything for the sake of something to put in my stomach. It is so empty that little bit of fish we divided is shaking around as if it were lost. Gracious, I could eat a million fish the size of that one! Have you thought of Farmer Brown’s hens, Granny?”
“Of course, Reddy! Of course! What a silly question!” replied Granny. “We may have to come to them yet.”
“I wish I was at them right now,” interrupted Reddy with a sigh.
“But you know what I have told you,” went on Granny. “The surest way of getting into trouble is to steal hens. I’m not feeling quite up to being chased by Bowser the Hound just now, and if we came right home we would give away the secret of where we live and might be smoked out, and that would be the end of us. Besides, those hens will be hard to get this weather, because they will stay in their house, and there is no way for us to get in there unless we walk right in, in broad daylight, and that would never do. It will be a great deal better to take Bowser’s dinner away from him. In the first place, if we are careful, no one but Bowser will know about it, and as long as he is chained up, we will have nothing to worry about from him. Besides, we will enjoy getting even with him for the times he has spoiled our chances of catching a fat chicken and for the way he has hunted us. Most decidedly it will be better and safer to try for Bowser’s dinner than to try for one of those hens.”
“Just as you say, Granny; just as you say,” returned Reddy. “You know best. But how under the sun we can do it beats me.”
“It is very simple,” replied Granny, “very simple indeed. Most things are simple enough when you find out how to do them. Neither of us could do it alone, but together we can do it without the least bit of risk. Listen.”
Granny went close to Reddy and whispered to him, although there wasn’t a soul within hearing. A slow grin spread over Reddy’s face as he listened. When she had finished, he laughed right out.
“Granny, you are a wonder!” he exclaimed admiringly. “I never should have thought of that. Of course we can do it. My, won’t Bowser be surprised! And how mad he’ll be! Come on, let’s be starting!”
“All right,” said Granny, and the two started towards Farmer Brown’s.
XVIII Why Bowser the Hound Didn’t Eat His DinnerThe thing you’ve puzzled most about
Is simple once you’ve found it out.
Bowser the Hound dearly loves to hunt just for the pleasure of the chase. It isn’t so much the desire to kill as it is the pleasure of using that wonderful nose of his and the excitement of trying to catch someone, especially Granny or Reddy Fox. Farmer Brown’s boy had put away his dreadful gun because he no longer wanted to kill the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows, but rather to make them his friends. Bowser had missed the exciting hunts he used
Comments (0)