Mother West Wind "When" Stories
Thornton W. Burgess
MP3 CD
(IDB Productions, March 15, 2019)
Mother West Wind "When" Stories I. WHEN MR. BLUEBIRD WON HIS BEAUTIFUL COAT OF all the joyous sounds of all the year there is none more loved by Peter Rabbit, and the rest of us for that matter, than the soft whistle of Winsome Bluebird in the spring. The first time Peter hears it he always jumps up in the air, kicks his long heels together, and does a funny little dance of pure joy, for he knows that Winsome Bluebird is the herald of sweet Mistress Spring, and that she is not far behind him. It is the end of the shivery, sad time and the beginning of the happy, glad time, and Peter rejoices when he hears that sweet, soft voice which is sometimes so hard to locate, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. So Peter loves Winsome Bluebird and never tires of seeing him about. You know he wears a very, very beautiful coat of blue, the blue of the sky when it is softest, and you love to lie on your back and look up into it and dream and dream. It always has seemed to Peter that Winsome's coat is one of the loveliest he ever has seen, as indeed it is, and that it is quite right and proper and just as it should be that one having such a beautiful voice and bringing such a beautiful message should himself be beautiful. He said as much one day when he had run over to the Smiling Pool to pay his respects to Grandfather Frog. “Chug-a-rum! Certainly. Of course,” replied Grandfather Frog. “Winsome Bluebird has a beautiful nature and his beautiful coat is the reward which Old Mother Nature has given him. It has been in the family ever since his grandfather a thousand times removed was brave enough to become the herald of Mistress Spring.” “Oh, Grandfather Frog, that sounds like a story,” cried Peter. “Please, please tell it to me, for I love Winsome Bluebird, and I know I shall love him more when I have learned more about him. His great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather must h