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    The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver
    The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver
    The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver

    By Thornton W. Burgess

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    Thornton W. Burgess was an important and influential American conservationist and a prolific author of charming children’s stories. For over 50 years, Burgess published numerous popular books on the flora and fauna of the natural world and wrote a regular newspaper column called “Bedtime Stories”. Often affectionately referred to as the “Bedtime Story-Man”, Burgess celebrated his love for the natural world through humorous and educational stories for children in both his books and in his popular column. First published in 1917, “The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver” follows the familiar character of Paddy as he moves into the Green Forest and finds it to be more dangerous than he imagined. Pursued by the mean Old Man Coyote, Paddy befriends grouchy Sammy Jay, who helps him escape from the cruel hunter. Soon, Paddy and Sammy become best friends and their forest homes are again happy places. Burgess had a special ability to combine an educational story about the behaviors, habitats, and characteristics of the creatures of the natural world while also captivating audiences both young and old. This edition includes a biographical afterword and the original illustrations by Harrison Cady.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 8, 2020
    ISBN9781420971309

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      Book preview

      The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver - Thornton W. Burgess

      cover.jpg

      THE ADVENTURES OF PADDY THE BEAVER

      By THORNTON W. BURGESS

      The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver

      By Thornton W. Burgess

      Illustrated by Harrison Cady

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7129-3

      eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7130-9

      This edition copyright © 2020. Digireads.com Publishing.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      Cover Image: a detail of an illustration by Harrison Cady, published by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, c. 1917.

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      CONTENTS

      I. Paddy the Beaver Begins Work

      II. Paddy Plans a Pond

      III. Paddy Has Many Visitors

      IV. Sammy Jay Speaks His Mind

      V. Paddy Keeps His Promise

      VI. Farmer Brown’s Boy Grows Curious

      VII. Farmer Brown’s Boy Gets Another Surprise

      VIII. Peter Rabbit Gets a Ducking

      IX. Paddy Plans a House

      X. Paddy Starts His House

      XI. Peter Rabbit and Jerry Muskrat Are Puzzled

      XII. Jerry Muskrat Learns Something

      XIII. The Queer Storehouse

      XIV. A Footprint in the Mud

      XV. Sammy Jay Makes Paddy a Call

      XVI. Old Man Coyote Is Very Crafty

      XVII. Old Man Coyote Is Disappointed

      XVIII. Old Man Coyote Tries Another Plan

      XIX. Paddy and Sammy Jay Become Friends

      XX. Sammy Jay Offers to Help Paddy

      XXI. Paddy and Sammy Jay Work Together

      XXII. Paddy Finishes His Harvest

      Biographical Afterword

      I. Paddy the Beaver Begins Work

      Work, work all the night

      While the stars are shining bright;

      Work, work all the day;

      I have got no time to play.

      This little rhyme Paddy the Beaver made up as he toiled at building the dam which was to make the pond he so much desired deep in the Green Forest. Of course it wasn’t quite true, that about working all night and all day. Nobody could do that, you know, and keep it up. Everybody has to rest and sleep. Yes, and everybody has to play a little to be at their best. So it wasn’t quite true that Paddy worked all day after working all night. But it was true that Paddy had no time to play. He had too much to do. He had had his playtime during the long summer, and now he had to get ready for the long cold winter.

      Now of all the little workers in the Green Forest, on the Green Meadows, and in the Smiling Pool, none can compare with Paddy the Beaver, not even his cousin, Jerry Muskrat. Happy Jack Squirrel and Striped Chipmunk store up food for the long cold months when rough Brother North Wind and Jack Frost rule, and Jerry Muskrat builds a fine house wherein to keep warm and comfortable, but all this is as nothing to the work of Paddy the Beaver.

      As I said before, Paddy had had a long playtime through the summer. He had wandered up and down the Laughing Brook. He had followed it way up to the place where it started. And all the time he had been studying and studying to make sure that he wanted to stay in the Green Forest. In the first place, he had to be sure that there was plenty of the kind of food that he likes. Then he had to be equally sure that he could make a pond near where this particular food grew. Last of all, he had to satisfy himself that if he did make a pond and build a home, he would be reasonably safe in it. And all these things he had done in his playtime. Now he was ready to go to work, and when Paddy begins work, he sticks to it until it is finished. He says that is the only way to succeed, and you know and I know that he is right.

      Now Paddy the Beaver can see at night just as Reddy Fox and Peter Rabbit and Bobby Coon can, and he likes the night best, because he feels safest then. But he can see in the daytime too, and when he feels that he is perfectly safe and no one is watching, he works then too. Of course the first thing to do was to build a dam across the Laughing Brook to make the pond he so much needed. He chose a low open place deep in the Green Forest, around the edge of which grew many young aspen-trees, the bark of which is his favorite food. Through the middle of this open place flowed the Laughing Brook. At the lower edge was just the place for a dam. It would not have to be very long, and when it was finished and the water was stopped in the Laughing Brook, it would just have to flow over the low open place and make a pond there. Paddy’s eyes twinkled when he first saw it. It was right then that he made up his mind to stay in the Green Forest.

      So now that he was ready to begin his dam he went up the Laughing Brook to a place where alders and willows grew, and there he began work; that work was the cutting of a great number of trees by means of his big front teeth which were given him for just this purpose. And as he worked,

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