Billy Mink

By Thornton W. Burgess and Harrison Cady

Join Billy Mink, Bobby Raccoon, and Jumper the Hare as they battle the Rats, a crew of robbers that takes over the Big Barn and makes life miserable for the peaceful creatures of the Green Forest. These farmyard fables by a beloved storyteller offer young readers timeless lessons about the value of friendship and the importance of cooperation. The edition features charming illustrations by Harrison Cady.
Author and conservationist Thornton Burgess (1874–1965) wrote thousands of animal stories for children, starting with the 1910 publication of Old Mother West Wind. His tales convey an imaginative fascination with wildlife and a sincere concern for nature, teaching gentle lessons about ecology and respect for the environment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Apr 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9780486271354

Book preview

Of course, said Billy Mink, you and I are safe enough. FRONTISPIECE. See page 24.

Billy Mink

THORNTON W. BURGESS

Illustrated by Harrison Cady

PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE

THORNTON W. BURGESS SOCIETY,

SANDWICH, MASSACHUSETTS

BY

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

MINEOLA, NEW YORK

DOVER CHILDREN’S THRIFT CLASSICS

EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: JANET BAINE KOPITO

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2012 in association with the Thornton Burgess Society, Sandwich, Massachusetts, who have provided a new Introduction, is an unabridged republication of the work published by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, in 1924.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo), 1874–1965.

Billy Mink / Thornton W. Burgess ; illustrated by Harrison Cady.

p. cm.

Summary: Follow the adventure of a mischievous mink and his forest friends.

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-48107-4 — ISBN-10: 0-486-48107-7 (pbk.)

   1. Minks—Fiction. 2. Forest animals—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction.] I. Cady, Harrison, 1877–1970 ill. II. Title.

PZ7.B917Bd 2012

[Fic]—dc23

2011044485

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

48107701

www.doverpublications.com

Introduction to the Dover Edition

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The keen-witted Billy Mink first appeared in Thornton Burgess’s syndicated Bedtime Stories in newspapers in 1919. After five years of guest appearances, he finally got his own book, originally published by Little, Brown, and Company in 1924, a big year in the author’s life.

That year, Burgess bought the beautiful property in Hampden, Massachusetts, which he named Laughing Brook, a place that became the heart of his writing life. It was also the year he launched his own radio show, The Radio Nature League, on WBZ, then in East Springfield. Its purpose was the same as that of his books: to entertain and educate people about nature. His only pay for doing that half-hour weekly show was a ride to and from the studio, but he continued it for ten years because he believed in it. Burgess even cancelled a sponsor for interfering too much in the show.

Billy Mink, of course, has lasted much longer than the Radio Nature League, having been reprinted several times prior to Dover’s republication in 2012. Billy’s book was the first of The Smiling Pool Series. Along with Billy Mink, the series included Little Joe Otter, Jerry Muskrat at Home, and Longlegs the Heron. These were the last Burgess books to be devoted to a single dominant character with a continuous narrative. After Longlegs, every full-length book is a collection of stories featuring different birds and animals.

Thornton Burgess says of Billy, It is probable that few, if any, of the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows are filled with fear as seldom as is Billy Mink. He is a kind of super-hero of the little folk. He is equally at home on land or in the water, and no other animal combines his abilities to swim, track, hunt, climb, think, and fight. He never loses. In this book he outwits Man, eludes predators bigger than he is, and defeats an entire colony of rats. We should all be so gifted. Turn the page and let the fun begin.

JOHN RICHMOND

The Thornton W. Burgess Society

Sandwich, Massachusetts

Contents

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Illustrations

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Of course, said Billy Mink, you and I are safe enough

I’ve never seen that fellow before, muttered Billy to himself

Out on an old log full in the moonlight crept a plump form and sat down

Jerry Muskrat was swimming over towards his house

He is Billy Mink, replied the gray old leader gravely

The rats leave the big barn

Sometimes Billy would find scraps of meat

It was plain to see that those Rats were in a terrible fright

Chapter I

Billy Mink Becomes Suspicious

The stranger and the unknown

must Be always looked on with distrust.

Billy Mink.

OF all the little people in the Green Forest there is none with sharper eyes and keener wits than Billy Mink. Nothing goes on along the Laughing Brook, from where it starts in the Green Forest to where it joins the Big River, that Billy Mink doesn’t know about. Billy is a great traveler. He is so full of life and energy that he cannot keep still very long at a time. Moreover, Billy is one of those little people to whom it makes no difference whether jolly, round, bright Mr. Sun is shining or gentle Mistress Moon has taken his place up in the sky, or the Black Shadows have wrapped everything in darkness. He takes a nap whenever he feels sleepy. Whenever he doesn’t feel sleepy he travels back and forth up and down the Laughing Brook.

In these little journeys back and forth nothing escapes Billy’s bright eyes and sharp ears and keen nose. Being such a slim fellow, he slips in and out of holes and hiding-places which no one save his cousin, Shadow the Weasel, could get into.