There was the strange pond in the Green Forest, and there was the dam
of logs and sticks and mud which had made the strange pond, but look
as they would, Billy Mink and Little Joe Otter and Jerry Muskrat and
Grandfather Frog and Spotty the Turtle could see nothing of the one who
had built the dam. It was very queer. The more they thought about it,
the queerer it seemed. They looked this way, and they looked that way.
“There is one thing very sure, and that is that whoever built this dam
had no thought for those who live in the Laughing Brook and the Smiling
Pool,” said Grandfather Frog. “They are selfish, just plain, every-day
selfish; that's what they are! Now the Laughing Brook cannot laugh,
and the Smiling Pool cannot smile, while this dam stops the water from
running, and so--” Grandfather Frog stopped and looked around at his
four friends.
“And so what?” cried Billy Mink impatiently.
“And so we must spoil this dam. We must make a place for the water to
run through,” said Grandfather Frog very gravely.
“Of course! That's the very thing!” cried Little Joe Otter and Billy
Mink and Jerry Muskrat and Spotty the Turtle. Then Little Joe Otter
looked at Billy Mink, and Billy Mink looked at Jerry Muskrat, and Jerry
Muskrat looked at Spotty the Turtle, and after that they all looked very
hard at Grandfather Frog, and all together they asked: “How are we going
to do it?”
Grandfather Frog scratched his head thoughtfully and looked a long time
at the dam of logs and sticks and mud. Then his big mouth widened in a
big smile.
“Why, that is very simple,” said he, “Jerry Muskrat will make a big hole
through the dam near the bottom, because he knows how, and the rest of
us will keep watch to see that no harm comes near.”
“The very thing!” cried Little Joe Otter and Billy Mink and Spotty the
Turtle, but Jerry Muskrat thought it wasn't fair. You see, it gave him
all of the real work to do. However, Jerry thought of his dear Smiling
Pool, and how terrible it would be if it should smile no more, and so
without another word he set to work.
Now Jerry Muskrat is a great worker, and he had made many long tunnels
into the bank around the Smiling Pool, so he had no doubt but that he
could soon make a hole through this dam. But almost right away he found
trouble. Yes, Sir, Jerry had hardly begun before he found real trouble.
You see, that dam was made mostly of sticks instead of mud, and so,
instead of digging his way in as he would have done into the bank of the
Smiling Pool, he had to stop every few minutes to gnaw off sticks that
were in the way.
It was hard work, the hardest kind of hard work. But Jerry Muskrat is
the kind that is the more determined to do the work the harder the work
is to be done. And so, while Grandfather Frog sat on one end of the dam
and pretended to keep watch, but really took a nap in the warm sunshine,
and while Spotty the Turtle sat on the other end of the dam doing the
same thing, and while Billy Mink and Little Joe Otter swam around in the
strange pond and enjoyed themselves, Jerry Muskrat worked and worked and
worked. And just as jolly, round, red Mr. Sun started down behind the
Purple Hills, Jerry broke through into the strange pond, and the water
began to run in the Laughing Brook once more.