There's nothing in this world that's sure,
No matter how we scheme and plan.
We simply have to be content
With doing just the best we can.
Jerry Muskrat had curled himself up for the night, so tired that he
could hardly keep his eyes open long enough to find a comfortable place
to sleep. But he was happy. Yes, indeed, Jerry was happy. He could hear
the Laughing Brook beginning to laugh again. It was just a little low,
gurgling laugh, but Jerry knew that in a little while it would grow
into the full laugh that makes music through the Green Forest and puts
happiness into the hearts of all who hear it.
So Jerry was happy, for was it not because of him that the Laughing
Brook was beginning to laugh? He had worked all the long day to make a
hole through the dam which some one had built across the Laughing Brook
and so stopped its laughter. Now the water was running again, and soon
the new, strange pond behind the dam there in the Green Forest would
be gone, and the Laughing Brook and the Smiling Pool would be their own
beautiful selves once more. It was because he had worked so hard all day
that he was going to sleep now. Usually he would rather sleep a part of
the day and be abroad at night.
Very pleasant dreams had Jerry Muskrat that night, dreams of the dear
Smiling Pool, smiling just as it had as long as Jerry could remember,
before this trouble had come. He was still dreaming when Spotty the
Turtle found him and waked him, for it was broad daylight. Jerry yawned
and stretched, and then he lay still for a minute to listen to the
pleasant murmur of the Laughing Brook. But there wasn't any pleasant
murmur. There wasn't any sound at all. Jerry began to wonder if he
really was awake after all. He looked at Spotty the Turtle, and he knew
then that he was, for Spotty's face had such a worried look.
“Get up, Jerry Muskrat, and come look at the hole you made yesterday in
the dam. You couldn't have done your work very well, for the hole has
filled up so that the water does not run any more,” said Spotty.
“I did do it well!” snapped Jerry crossly. “I did it just as well as
I know how. You lazy folks who just sit and take sun-naps while
you pretend to keep watch had better get busy and do a little work
yourselves, if you don't like the way I work.”
“I--I beg your pardon, Jerry Muskrat. I didn't mean to say just that,”
replied Spotty. “You see, we are all worried. We thought last night that
by this morning the Laughing Brook would be full of water again, and we
could go back to the Smiling Pool as soon as we felt like it, and here
it is as bad as ever.”
“Perhaps the trouble is just that some sticks and grass drifted down in
the water and filled up the hole I made; that must be the trouble,” said
Jerry hopefully, as he hurried towards the dam.
First he carefully examined it from the Laughing Brook side. Then he
dived down under water on the other side. He was gone a long time, and
Billy Mink was just getting ready to dive to see what had become of him
when he came up again.
“What is the trouble?” cried Spotty the Turtle and Grandfather Frog and
Billy Mink and Little Joe Otter together. “Is the hole filled up with
stuff that has drifted in?”
Jerry shook his head, as he slowly climbed out of the water. “No,” said
he. “No, it isn't filled with drift stuff brought down by the water. It
is filled with sticks and mud that somebody has put there. Somebody has
filled up the hole that I worked so hard to make yesterday, and it will
take me all day to open it up again.”
Then Grandfather Frog and Spotty the Turtle and Billy Mink and Little
Joe Otter and Jerry Muskrat stared at one mother, and for a long time no
one said a word.