59. The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum

 59. The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum. Thornton W. Burgess. 1914. 139 pages. [Source: Library] [5 stars, classic, children's classic, animal fantasy]

First sentence:  THE Green Meadows were thrown into great excitement late one afternoon, just as the black shadows came creeping down from the Purple Hills. Reddy Fox brought the news, and when he told it he grinned as if he enjoyed it and was glad of it. "Old Billy Possum is dead. I know it because I saw Farmer Brown's boy carrying him home by the tail," said Reddy. "So you see he wasn't so smart as you thought he was," he added maliciously. No one really believed Reddy Fox, for every one knows that he seldom tells the truth, but when Jimmy Skunk came mournfully down the Crooked Little Path and said that it was true, they had to believe it. Then everybody began to talk about Unc' Billy and say nice things about him and tell how much they had enjoyed having him live in the Green Forest since he came up from "Ol' Virginny." That is, everybody but Reddy Fox said so. Reddy said that it served Unc' Billy right, because he was of no account, anyway. Then everybody began to hoot and hiss at Reddy until he was glad enough to slink away.

Premise/plot: What you see is what you get: the ADVENTURES of Uncle Billy Possum. Thornton W. Burgess published a series of children's books--fantasy books, animal fantasy books--in the early twentieth century. Unc' Billy Possum LOVES to steal eggs from Farmer Brown. Jimmy Skunk is a friend and cohort. They both love to steal eggs from Farmer Brown. Usually, Unc' Billy is clever enough NOT to get caught directly by Farmer Brown or his son(s). But not always--so this one has some adventures AND misadventures. 

The simple plot could be condensed to Uncle Billy Possums' family comes to live with him in the Green Meadows and his friends throw a surprise party to celebrate. Not all the animals are invited, pranks are planned, and plots are foiled. Uncle Billy finds himself in a series of scrapes when his wits become 'sleepy' and he doesn't think through his 'criminal' activities (egg stealing). While his family worries, Unc' Billy feels stressed. Will he ever find his way back to his family?! Will lessons be learned?!

My thoughts: This is the first Thornton Burgess that I remember reading--at least reading on my own! Mom assures me that she read aloud some of his animal stories when we were young. I definitely LOVED this one. I thought the characters were fun. The stories were charming; perhaps a few instances where people might feel them to be NOT politically correct--a few 'dated' terms that are not perfectly ideal. However, especially adult readers could still find these stories delightful, charming, and perhaps nostalgic.
I would always prefer to read classics in their original form--rooted in the time and place in which they were written--than to have 'edited' versions that are seeking to appease. 

Favorite quote:

Now it never does to let one's wits go to sleep. Some folks call it forgetting, but forgetting is nothing but sleepy wits. And sleepy wits get more people into trouble than anything else in the world. Unc' Billy Possum's wits were asleep when he left Farmer Brown's hen-house. If they hadn't been, he would have remembered this little saying:

The wits that live within my head
Must never, never go to sleep,
For if they should I might forget
And Trouble on me swiftly leap.

© 2025 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Miss Billy Married (1914)

Miss Billy Married. Eleanor H. Porter. 1914. 240 pages.

Miss Billy Married is the conclusion to Eleanor H. Porter's Miss Billy trilogy. The first novel was Miss Billy and the second was Miss Billy's Decision. The first two Miss Billy novels were published before the oh-so-successful publication of the children's novel, Pollyanna in 1913. (Other popular authors of the time were Jean Webster, L.M. Montgomery, and Grace Livingston Hill.)

Billy has married Bertram Henshaw, and the two are living with brother William. (The other brother, Cyril, has moved with his wife, into a home of their own.) If Billy, our heroine, has a weakness, that weakness would definitely be thinking too much and making things more complicated than they need to be. (Though one could argue that she doesn't think enough in some places!) For example, Billy will read an article--or to be precise a quiz--in a magazine and become obsessed with it, obsessed with analyzing herself, analyzing her husband, analyzing her marriage, etc. And you can just imagine what Billy does with self-help books, cook books, and parenting books! The truth is that Billy is completely silly and ridiculous as a heroine. The book, for better or worse, is enjoyable--or entertaining--because it is comical. The laughs coming at Billy's expense for the most part. Is this a terrible thing? Has Billy lost some of her intelligence since getting married? After all, in the first two books, Miss Billy was managing just fine! She was composing music and having it published! She was popular, successful, and generous. She was absorbed in her music OR she was absorbed in her friends, making their lives better, making a contribution to society. Readers are presented with a whole new Billy in this one. Billy is facing her toughest trials: learning to manage without hired live-in servants, learning to cook and bake, learning to clean, learning when to make her husband, her "everything, and when to give him some space, learning to mother, learning that reading twenty conflicting parenting books is ridiculous, etc.

Example of the humor:

It was at this juncture that Billy ran across a book entitled "Correct Eating for Efficiency." She bought it at once, and carried it home in triumph. It proved to be a marvelous book. Billy had not read two chapters before she began to wonder how the family had managed to live thus far with any sort of success, in the face of their dense ignorance and her own criminal carelessness concerning their daily bill of fare.
At dinner that night Billy told Bertram and William of her discovery, and, with growing excitement, dilated on the wonderful good that it was to bring to them.
"Why, you don't know, you can't imagine what a treasure it is!" she exclaimed. "It gives a complete table for the exact balancing of food."
"For what?" demanded Bertram, glancing up.
"The exact balancing of food; and this book says that's the biggest problem that modern scientists have to solve."
"Humph!" shrugged Bertram. "Well, you just balance my food to my hunger, and I'll agree not to complain."
"Oh, but, Bertram, it's serious, really," urged Billy, looking genuinely distressed. "Why, it says that what you eat goes to make up what you are. It makes your vital energies. Your brain power and your body power come from what you eat. Don't you see? If you're going to paint a picture you need something different from what you would if you were going to—to saw wood; and what this book tells is—is what I ought to give you to make you do each one, I should think, from what I've read so far. Now don't you see how important it is? What if I should give you the saw-wood kind of a breakfast when you were just going up-stairs to paint all day? And what if I should give Uncle William a—a soldier's breakfast when all he is going to do is to go down on State Street and sit still all day?"
"But—but, my dear," began Uncle William, looking slightly worried, "there's my eggs that I always have, you know."
"For heaven's sake, Billy, what have you got hold of now?" demanded Bertram, with just a touch of irritation.
Billy laughed merrily.
"Well, I suppose I didn't sound very logical," she admitted. "But the book—you just wait. It's in the kitchen. I'm going to get it." And with laughing eagerness she ran from the room.
In a moment she had returned, book in hand.
"Now listen. This is the real thing—not my garbled inaccuracies. 'The food which we eat serves three purposes: it builds the body substance, bone, muscle, etc., it produces heat in the body, and it generates vital energy. Nitrogen in different chemical combinations contributes largely to the manufacture of body substances; the fats produce heat; and the starches and sugars go to make the vital energy. The nitrogenous food elements we call proteins; the fats and oils, fats; and the starches and sugars (because of the predominance of carbon), we call carbohydrates. Now in selecting the diet for the day you should take care to choose those foods which give the proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in just the right proportion.'"
"Oh, Billy!" groaned Bertram.
"But it's so, Bertram," maintained Billy, anxiously. "And it's every bit here. I don't have to guess at it at all. They even give the quantities of calories of energy required for different sized men. I'm going to measure you both to-morrow; and you must be weighed, too," she continued, ignoring the sniffs of remonstrance from her two listeners. "Then I'll know just how many calories to give each of you. They say a man of average size and weight, and sedentary occupation, should have at least 2,000 calories—and some authorities say 3,000—in this proportion: proteins, 300 calories, fats, 350 calories, carbohydrates, 1,350 calories. But you both are taller than five feet five inches, and I should think you weighed more than 145 pounds; so I can't tell just yet how many calories you will need."
"How many we will need, indeed!" ejaculated Bertram.
"But, my dear, you know I have to have my eggs," began Uncle William again, in a worried voice.
"Of course you do, dear; and you shall have them," soothed Billy, brightly. "It's only that I'll have to be careful and balance up the other things for the day accordingly. Don't you see? Now listen. We'll see what eggs are." She turned the leaves rapidly. "Here's the food table. It's lovely. It tells everything. I never saw anything so wonderful. A—b—c—d—e—here we are. 'Eggs, scrambled or boiled, fats and proteins, one egg, 100.' If it's poached it's only 50; but you like yours boiled, so we'll have to reckon on the 100. And you always have two, so that means 200 calories in fats and proteins. Now, don't you see? If you can't have but 300 proteins and 350 fats all day, and you've already eaten 200 in your two eggs, that'll leave just—er—450 for all the rest of the day,—of fats and proteins, you understand. And you've no idea how fast that'll count up. Why, just one serving of butter is 100 of fats, and eight almonds is another, while a serving of lentils is 100 of proteins. So you see how it'll go."
"Yes, I see," murmured Uncle William, casting a mournful glance about the generously laden table, much as if he were bidding farewell to a departing friend. "But if I should want more to eat—" He stopped helplessly, and Bertram's aggrieved voice filled the pause.
"Look here, Billy, if you think I'm going to be measured for an egg and weighed for an almond, you're much mistaken; because I'm not. I want to eat what I like, and as much as I like, whether it's six calories or six thousand!"
Billy chuckled, but she raised her hands in pretended shocked protest.
"Six thousand! Mercy! Bertram, I don't know what would happen if you ate that quantity; but I'm sure you couldn't paint. You'd just have to saw wood and dig ditches to use up all that vital energy."
"Humph!" scoffed Bertram.
"Besides, this is for efficiency," went on Billy, with an earnest air. "This man owns up that some may think a 2,000 calory ration is altogether too small, and he advises such to begin with 3,000 or even 3,500—graded, of course, according to a man's size, weight, and occupation. But he says one famous man does splendid work on only 1,800 calories, and another on even 1,600. But that is just a matter of chewing. Why, Bertram, you have no idea what perfectly wonderful things chewing does."
"Yes, I've heard of that," grunted Bertram; "ten chews to a cherry, and sixty to a spoonful of soup. There's an old metronome up-stairs that Cyril left. You might bring it down and set it going on the table—so many ticks to a mouthful, I suppose. I reckon, with an incentive like that to eat, just about two calories would do me. Eh, William?"
"Bertram! Now you're only making fun," chided Billy; "and when it's really serious, too. Now listen," she admonished, picking up the book again. "'If a man consumes a large amount of meat, and very few vegetables, his diet will be too rich in protein, and too lacking in carbohydrates. On the other hand, if he consumes great quantities of pastry, bread, butter, and tea, his meals will furnish too much energy, and not enough building material.' There, Bertram, don't you see?"
"Oh, yes, I see," teased Bertram. "William, better eat what you can to-night. I foresee it's the last meal of just food we'll get for some time. Hereafter we'll have proteins, fats, and carbohydrates made into calory croquettes, and—"
"Bertram!" scolded Billy.
But Bertram would not be silenced.
"Here, just let me take that book," he insisted, dragging the volume from Billy's reluctant fingers. "Now, William, listen. Here's your breakfast to-morrow morning: strawberries, 100 calories; whole-wheat bread, 75 calories; butter, 100 calories (no second helping, mind you, or you'd ruin the balance and something would topple); boiled eggs, 200 calories; cocoa, 100 calories—which all comes to 570 calories. Sounds like an English bill of fare with a new kind of foreign money, but 'tisn't, really, you know. Now for luncheon you can have tomato soup, 50 calories; potato salad—that's cheap, only 30 calories, and—" But Billy pulled the book away then, and in righteous indignation carried it to the kitchen.
"You don't deserve anything to eat," she declared with dignity, as she returned to the dining-room.
"No?" queried Bertram, his eyebrows uplifted. "Well, as near as I can make out we aren't going to get—much."
But Billy did not deign to answer this.
In spite of Bertram's tormenting gibes, Billy did, for some days, arrange her meals in accordance with the wonderful table of food given in "Correct Eating for Efficiency." To be sure, Bertram, whatever he found before him during those days, anxiously asked whether he were eating fats, proteins, or carbohydrates; and he worried openly as to the possibility of his meal's producing one calory too much or too little, thus endangering his "balance."
Billy alternately laughed and scolded, to the unvarying good nature of her husband. As it happened, however, even this was not for long, for Billy ran across a magazine article on food adulteration; and this so filled her with terror lest, in the food served, she were killing her family by slow poison, that she forgot all about the proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Her talk these days was of formaldehyde, benzoate of soda, and salicylic acid.
Very soon, too, Billy discovered an exclusive Back Bay school for instruction in household economics and domestic hygiene. Billy investigated it at once, and was immediately aflame with enthusiasm. She told Bertram that it taught everything, everything she wanted to know; and forthwith she enrolled herself as one of its most devoted pupils, in spite of her husband's protests that she knew enough, more than enough, already. This school attendance, to her consternation, Billy discovered took added time; but in some way she contrived to find it to take.

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Tarzan of the Apes

Burroughs, Edgar Rice. 1914. Tarzan of the Apes. 262 pages.

I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other.

Who is Tarzan? Is Tarzan's boast at the end of the novel true? "My mother was an Ape, and of course she couldn't tell me much about it. I never knew who my father was." What do you think?

Our story begins with a young couple in love traveling the seas*. Unfortunately, they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. The sailors on board have mutinied. Their lives are spared, but they're abandoned. Left ashore who knows where. (They certainly don't know.) They do have a son, but before he's a year old, he's an orphan. First his mother, then his father. Fortunately, he's discovered soon after by an ape. Kala becomes Tarzan's mother. She's just lost her baby--in fact she leaves her baby behind, in the cabin, in the cradle.

Raised by apes, Tarzan is as savage as savage can be. Mostly. Tarzan does realize--quite early on as he begins to mature--that he's not like the other apes. And he seeks to discover more. He returns to the cabin--discovers it I should say. And he begins to go through his parents' things. Of course, he doesn't know that the two skeletons (yes, they're still there) are his parents. And their remains don't bother him the least. He finds some books. And through the course of a decade (give or take a few in either direction) he teaches himself to read and write English. (Pretty amazing, isn't it???) That you could teach yourself to read and write all on your own having never heard a single word uttered? Also pretty convenient that his parents just happened to have the right kinds of books. Primers I think they're called.

The book is about his adventures in the jungle. His adventures hunting and killing. His quest to outsmart some of the creatures of the jungle. His curiosity in becoming a better hunter, a better killer. His curiosity at the black men he discovers. (A colony of cannibals, I believe.) He learns about bows and arrows and spears and other faster/quicker ways of shedding blood and glorying in it.

And so his life might have gone on quite bloodily--what with all the squabbles and hunts and fights and such--if he hadn't stumbled upon a small group of humans. Humans newly left ashore by another ship whose crew had mutinied. (Or so I recall.) Among them, a young woman named Jane.

And this is where it turns interesting.

As I discuss the novel, my reactions to it, there may be spoilers ahead. Details about what happens that could potentially ruin it for new readers. Granted, the book has been around for generations. And it has been adapted in many different ways. But I thought I'd warn you nonetheless.

I suppose this one could lead easily to the nature versus nurture discussion. Here we have a human child, a gentleman, quality bloodlines, being raised by "savage" apes. He lives in the wild. He knows nothing but hunting, killing, living off the land. He knows nothing of "proper" manners, he eats all his meat raw. And he's, of course, naked as can be. He knows no language but that of the apes. And yet...and yet...Burroughs has him learning to read and write all on his own. At least, Burroughs doesn't have him learning to speak English. Once he begins to read his parents' books he realizes that he's savage, that he should be different, that he should be wearing clothes.

Some things do come naturally. When he first sees Jane, he knows instinctively that he wants her, that he needs her. He desires her. End of story. But Burroughs also has Tarzan realize some of the limits. He comes to realize--with a few cues from Jane guiding the way--that he should not take her by force. That that is something only savage beasts would do.

Things come naturally--instinctively--for Jane as well. There is something within her that is attracted to this super-strength. His hunter/protector skills. There's something so earthy and vital about him that just attracts her. Even though she knows that she probably shouldn't be. Yet part of her wants to be with him--to be a part of his world. Even if it means losing some of her civility.

This one was published in the early twentieth century. And it's a bit brutal and bloody. A bit savage in the destruction of life--both human and animal. Even though the men he kills are killers themselves--hunters and cannibals--there is something about the whole mess that I find disturbing. Not that I want the hunters to kill Tarzan (or Jane or anybody). And I didn't like the fact that they killed Tarzan's mother (his ape mother). But the way that this tribe is described as sub-human could be offensive. I think it could have been a lot worse than what it was. But still. Tarzan doesn't see these men as "men." He sees them almost the same as other beasts in the jungle. Except for the fact that they decorate their bodies with jewelry and paint. (He likes this. So he adopts this. He begins to wear jewelry as well. Things he's taken from the men he's killed.) But even just the animal brutality and slaughter can be a bit much.

*John and Alice Clayton (Lord and Lady Greystoke)

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Old Friends and New Fancies

Brinton, Sybil. G. 1914/2008. Old Friends and New Fancies: An Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen.

Originally written in 1913 (published in 1914), Old Friends and New Fancies is the first Jane Austen sequel ever created. It has been newly published by Sourcebooks. The book is a first in many ways. It is unique too. It is a sequel to all SIX Jane Austen novels: Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility. You'll find several of your best-loved and best-love-to-hate characters within its pages.

At its heart, Old Friends and New Fancies is a love story. A book all about the ups, downs, twists, and turns of courtship--Austen style. Misunderstandings abound!

I especially loved to see how Mrs. Jennings, Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Emma Knightley are still causing trouble--intentional or not.

The book is essentially concerned with four would-be-pairings. I hesitate to tell you too much. After all, half the fun is seeing which pairs Sybil Brinton imagined being compatible. There are two primary narrators, however, in the book: Georgiana Darcy and Elizabeth (Bennet) Darcy. (Other viewpoints are shown. And it is more than just those two, but over half the book at least are those two.)

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Mix and match: James Morland, William Price, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Tom Bertram...with....
Georgiana Darcy, Kitty Bennet, Isabella Thorpe, and Mary Crawford.


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews