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Why Striped Chipmunk Is Proud of His Stripes
Why Peter Rabbit Cannot Fold His Hands
Why Unc' Billy Possum Plays Dead
Why Reddy Fox Wears Red
Why Jimmy Skunk Never Hurries
Why Sammy Jay Has a Fine Coat
Why Jerry Muskrat Builds His House in the Water
Why Old Man Coyote Has Many Voices
Why Miner the Mole Lives under Ground
Why Mr. Snake Cannot Wink
Why Bobby Coon Has Rin... More

Why Striped Chipmunk Is Proud of His Stripes
Why Peter Rabbit Cannot Fold His Hands
Why Unc' Billy Possum Plays Dead
Why Reddy Fox Wears Red
Why Jimmy Skunk Never Hurries
Why Sammy Jay Has a Fine Coat
Why Jerry Muskrat Builds His House in the Water
Why Old Man Coyote Has Many Voices
Why Miner the Mole Lives under Ground
Why Mr. Snake Cannot Wink
Why Bobby Coon Has Rings on His Tail
Why There Is a Black Head in the Buzzard Family
Why Buster Bear Appears to Have No Tail
Why Flitter the Bat Flies at Night
Why Spotty the Turtle Carries His House with Him
Why Paddy the Beaver Has a Broad Tail

Thornton Waldo Burgess was born on January 14, 1874, in Sandwich, Massachusetts. He was the son of Caroline F. Haywood and Thornton W. Burgess, Sr., a direct descendant of Thomas Burgess, one of the first settlers of Sandwich, Massachusetts in 1637. Thornton W. Burgess, Sr., died the same year his son was born, and the young Thornton Burgess was brought up by his mother in Sandwich. They both lived in humble circumstances with relatives or paying rent. As a youth, he worked year round in order to earn money. Some of his jobs included tending cows, picking trailing arbutus or berries, shipping water lilies from local ponds, selling candy, and trapping muskrats. William C. Chipman, one of his employers, lived on Discovery Hill Road, a wildlife habitat of woodland and wetland. This habitat became the setting of many of Thornton's stories in which he refers to Smiling Pool and the Old Briar Patch.
Graduating from Sandwich High School in 1891, Burgess attended a business college in Boston from 1892 to 1893. At the age of 17, Burgess briefly lived in Boston and then moved to Springfield, Massachusetts. He bought a place in Hampden, Massachusetts, in 1925 and made it his permanent home in 1957. Returning frequently to Sandwich, Burgess claimed that to be his birth place and spiritual home. Many of his childhood experiences and the people he knew influenced his interest and concern for wildlife.

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