Old Rough the miser: A fable for children: Classic Book Guide and Free Edition
Old Rough the miser: A fable for children: author and translator credits, catalogue synopsis, subjects and links to the Gutenberg reading formats.
Old Rough the miser: A fable for children is catalogued by Project Gutenberg with author credits for Wesselhoeft, Lily F. (1840–1919).
Catalogue synopsis
Project Gutenberg supplies this automated synopsis of the opening text:
"Old Rough the miser" by Lily F. Wesselhoeft is a children's animal fable written in the late 19th century. Set on a farm and in the surrounding woods, it follows a community of talking animals—chiefly Old Rough, a greedy water-rat; Old Caw, a shrewd patriarchal crow; Blinkeye, a solemn owl; Bobtilla, a gentle field-mouse; two prankish young crows; kindly chipmunks; and Johnny, a vain bullfrog—as a long-standing feud over a cornfield rekindles and tests their codes of conduct and compassion. It explores greed, mischief, and neighborliness through “laws of the woods” and mounting tensions that threaten the peace of the meadow. The opening of the story recounts an old dispute between a crow and a water-rat over a cornfield, “settled” by an owl in favor of the crow but never accepted by the rat, allowing the feud to persist into a later generation. We meet Old Rough at home, a harsh miser who bullies his meek wife and refuses even a tender root to Bobtilla for her sick child. Two saucy young crows mock the rat and later, under the wary eye of their grandfather Old Caw, raid the newly planted corn until a warning sends them skyward. Old Rough evicts Bobtilla and narrowly escapes Blinkeye at dusk, while elsewhere Johnny the bullfrog laments a lost love, is duped by the crows into serenading the stout Widow O’Warty, and then, prodded by Old Rough’s lies, declares war on all field-mice. Swift the swallow overhears this and warns the chipmunks, who help Bobtilla and their own family relocate to a safer home beneath the roots of an old oak. As rumors of war spread and the frogs gather, Old Rough quietly rejoices at the havoc to come.
Book and edition facts
- Title: Old Rough the miser: A fable for children
- Author credits: Wesselhoeft, Lily F. (1840–1919)
- Catalogue language: English
Catalogue subjects
- Animals -- Juvenile fiction
- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
- Fables
- Misers -- Juvenile fiction
- Vendetta -- Juvenile fiction
- War stories
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Source notes
Catalogue metadata is public domain and is supplied through Gutendex, which imports Gutenberg's machine-readable catalogue. The automated synopsis is source-supplied, not an independently verified review. Author dates above describe the credited people; no ebook release date is presented as the book's original publication date.
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