BILLY FINDS SOME QUEER FENCES
When something new and strange you find,
Watch out! To danger be not blind.
_Billy Mink._
The trouble with a great many people is that they are heedless. When
they find something new and strange they forget everything but their
curiosity. Because of this they walk right straight into trouble. It
happens over and over again.
But Billy Mink isn’t this kind of a person. My, my, I should say not. He
never has been. If he had he would have lost that beautiful, brown coat
of his long ago and there would be no Billy Mink. Billy has his share of
curiosity, but with it he possesses a great big bump of suspicion. When
he finds anything new and strange he wants to learn all about it. But
right away he is suspicious of it.
After he had discovered the trap set for him at the entrance to one of
his favorite holes, and had fooled the trapper by getting the fish the
trapper had placed in that hole, Billy went on up the Laughing Brook to
see what else he could discover. Not very far above that place there was
a steep bank on each side of the Laughing Brook. Along the foot of each
bank was a narrow strip of level ground between the bank and the water.
You see, at this season of the year, the water in the Laughing Brook was
low.
When Billy came to this place he discovered something queer. It was a
little fence. It ran from the foot of the bank straight out into the
Laughing Brook to where the water became deep. Midway in this little
fence was a gateway just big enough to slip through comfortably. Billy
looked across to the other side of the Laughing Brook. Over there was
another little fence just like this one, and that little fence had an
opening in it.
“Huh!” said Billy. “Huh! These fences are something new. They were not
here when I came down the Laughing Brook yesterday. I wonder what they
are for. If it were not for those two little openings I would have
either to climb the bank or swim around the ends of those fences, and
that would be bothersome. I can go through that little opening there as
easily as rolling off a log. But I’m not going to do it. No, sir, I’m
not going to do it. There is something wrong about these fences. They
look to me as if they were built just to make me go through one of those
little gateways. If that’s the case, I’m not going to do it.”
So Billy plunged into the Laughing Brook and swam out into the deep
water around the end of the little fence. Then very carefully he
approached the little opening from that side. The more he looked at it,
the less he liked it. Right in the middle of that little opening were
some wet, dead leaves. “Ha, ha!” said Billy. “Another trap!”