Old Rough the miser : A fable for children by Lily F. Wesselhoeft
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Old Rough the Miser by Lily F. Wesselhoeft is a children’s animal fable written in the late 19th century. It follows a greedy water-rat called Old Rough and a lively woodland cast—Old Caw and his mischievous crows, the solemn owl Blinkeye, the gentle field-mouse Bobtilla, helpful chipmunks, and Johnny the boastful bull-frog—as an old feud over a cornfield rekindles and spreads. Themes of greed, mischief, and mutual aid unfold under the cryptic
“Laws of the Woods,” as rival factions plot, raid, and rally their allies. At the start of the story, an ancestral quarrel between a crow and a water-rat over a cornfield is “settled” by an owl in favor of the crows, but the rat rejects the verdict, and the feud endures. We meet Old Rough, a miserly, bullying water-rat who hoards food, mistreats his wife, and cruelly refuses help to the timid mouse Bobtilla, while two chipmunks take Bobtilla under their care. Old Caw leads a cornfield raid that Rough disrupts, and Rough later evicts Bobtilla and narrowly escapes a night attack from the owl. The vain bull-frog Johnny, coached by the young crows, serenades the Widow O’Warty by mistake; when he discovers their prank, Rough shifts the blame onto Bobtilla, prompting Johnny to declare war on all field-mice. Swift the swallow overhears this and warns the chipmunks and Bobtilla, who relocate to a hidden, sturdier home beneath an old oak. As talk of war spreads through meadows and bogs, Rough exults, expecting to profit from the chaos. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Wesselhoeft, Lily F., 1840-1919 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Goodridge, J. F. |
| Title | Old Rough the miser : A fable for children |
| Original Publication | Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1891. |
| Credits | deaurider, PrimeNumber and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres |
| Subject | War stories |
| Subject | Animals -- Juvenile fiction |
| Subject | Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction |
| Subject | Fables |
| Subject | Misers -- Juvenile fiction |
| Subject | Vendetta -- Juvenile fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 77858 |
| Release Date | Feb 4, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 339 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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