How all those animals knew when it was 8AM, let alone that fact that it was held only on Saturdays, and they all seemed to knew when that was, is still a wonder to me.
That rear garden of his was hidden, not only from the street and blocked by his big white house, but the entire perimeter of the yard was completely surrounded by a privit hedge that had been there for decades and hadn’t been trimmed for nearly as long.
It was actually by chance that I managed to spy on the scene one Saturday in the Fall when I was but eight years old. I thought that I saw something shiny in the dirt under the heavy branching that covered the ground under those privits, and when I struggled to part all of the thick underbrush and lower branches, there they were!
Old Mr. Thompkins was sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of them all with a large old book opened to about halfway, reading slowly and in a gentle voice and the circle of creatures nodding and turning to look at each other from time to time.
Once every page or so there would be a burst of spontaneous applause, but since most of the audience was furried, there was no “clapping” sound like with we humans. (I assume that you readers ARE all humans….aren’t you?)
Anyhow, there was a nearly complete circle of mostly small and medium sized animals if you can picture it, in rapt attention to the reader and his story. There were rabbits, mostly grey ones, and chipmunks, which admittedly had a hard time keeping still, and of course there were a myriad of birds. I noticed that additional birds were covering low branches with their heads turned toward Mr. Thomkins, intently listening along with the audience on the ground.
There was even a box turtle, and some animal that I’m not really sure of, but looked like a groundhog.
I heard Mr. Thompkins say…”And they all lived happily ever after…and I wish that for all of you…TOO!”
There was silent applause again and then most of the animals dispersed in many directions with a Tabby cat coming up to the old man and rubbing against his leg as he stood. The cat followed Mr. Thomkins into the house so I guessed that it was his own pet but all of the other animals were naturally wild but they all sure did love hearing the old man read  to them on Saturday morning storytime.