Father Thrift and His Animal Friends

Chapter 2: Introduction

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About This Book

A queer, kindly old man who champions thrift leaves a town that has embraced wasteful fashions and walks into a nearby forest, where he becomes a neighbor and teacher to its creatures. Through linked, episodic tales he encounters owls, bears, beavers, foxes, squirrels, birds, insects and children, and helps solve practical problems such as sickness, quarrels, and careless habits. Each episode combines gentle humor and domestic detail with clear lessons about saving, industry, helpfulness, and sensible living, showing how patient counsel and small acts of cooperation gradually restore order and well-being in the woodland community.

Introduction

As from the days your father’s father knew,

This little story book now comes to you.

So when you turn its pages, heed them well:

Though strange the stories, many truths they tell.

They tell of animals and birds and trees,

Of children, flowers, and honeybees;

Of a queer old man, and a quaint old town

With crooked streets that ran up and down.

They tell of these and many, many more.

Still, this I’d add to what has gone before:

In the wood there grows a tree—the thrifty tree—

As wonderful as anything can be!

Its trunk is copper; silver are its leaves;

Its blossoms from bright golden threads it weaves;

Its fruit is health and wealth and honest joy—

So seek this goodly tree, wise girl and boy.