There's nothing like a stomach full
To make the heart feel light;
To chase away the clouds of care
And make the world seem bright.
That's a fact. A full stomach makes the whole world seem different,
brighter, better, and more worth living in. It is the hardest kind of
hard work to be cheerful and see only the bright side of things when
your stomach is empty. But once fill that empty stomach, and everything
is changed. It was just that way with Mrs. Quack. For days at a time
she hadn't had a full stomach because of the hunters with their
terrible guns, and when just before dark that night she returned to the
Smiling Pool, her stomach was quite empty.
“I don't suppose I'll find much to eat here, but a little in peace
and safety is better than a feast with worry and danger,” said she,
swimming over to the brown, broken-down bulrushes on one side of the
Smiling Pool and appearing to stand on her head as she plunged it under
water and searched in the mud on the bottom for food. Peter Rabbit
looked over at Jerry Muskrat sitting on the Big Rock, and Jerry winked.
In a minute up bobbed the head of Mrs. Quack, and there was both a
pleased and a worried look on her face. She had found some of the corn
left there by Farmer Brown's boy. At once she swam out to the middle of
the Smiling Pool, looking suspiciously this way and that way.
“There is corn over there,” said she. “Do you know how it came there?”
“I saw Farmer Brown's boy throwing something over there,” replied
Peter. “Didn't we tell you that he would be good to you?”
“Quack, quack, quack! I've seen that kind of kindness too often to
be fooled by it,” snapped Mrs. Quack. “He probably saw me leave in a
hurry and put this corn here, hoping that I would come back and find
it and make up my mind to stay here a while. He thinks that if I do,
he'll have a chance to hide near enough to shoot me. I didn't believe
this could be a safe place for me, and now I know it. I'll stay here
to-night, but to-morrow I'll try to find some other place. Oh, dear,
it's dreadful not to have any place at all to feel safe in.” There were
tears in her eyes.
Peter thought of the dear Old Briar-patch and how safe he always felt
there, and he felt a great pity for poor Mrs. Quack, who couldn't feel
safe anywhere. And then right away he grew indignant that she should
be so distrustful of Farmer Brown's boy, though if he had stopped to
think, he would have remembered that once he was just as distrustful.
“I should think,” said Peter with a great deal of dignity, “that you
might at least believe what Jerry Muskrat and I, who live here all the
time, tell you. We ought to know Farmer Brown's boy if any one does,
and we tell you that he won't harm a feather of you.”
“He won't get the chance!” snapped Mrs. Quack.
Jerry Muskrat sniffed in disgust. “I don't doubt you have suffered a
lot from men with terrible guns,” said he, “but you don't suppose Peter
and I have lived as long as we have without learning a little, do you?
I wouldn't trust many of those two-legged creatures myself, but Farmer
Brown's boy is different. If all of them were like him, we wouldn't
have a thing to fear from them. He has a heart. Yes, indeed, he has a
heart. Now you take my advice and eat whatever he has put there for
you, be thankful, and stop worrying. Peter and I will keep watch and
warn you if there is any danger.”
I don't know as even this would have overcome Mrs. Quack's fears if it
hadn't been for the taste of that good corn in her mouth, and her empty
stomach. She couldn't, she just couldn't resist these, and presently
she was back among the rushes, hunting out the corn and wheat as fast
as ever she could. When at last she could eat no more, she felt so
comfortable that somehow the Smiling Pool didn't seem such a dangerous
place after all, and she quite forgot Farmer Brown's boy. She found a
snug hiding-place among the rushes too far out from the bank for Reddy
Fox to surprise her, and then with a sleepy “Good night” to Jerry and
Peter, she tucked her head under her wing and soon was fast asleep.
Peter Rabbit tiptoed away, and then he hurried lipperty-lipperty-lip to
the dear Old Briar-patch to tell Mrs. Peter all about Mrs. Quack.