Thornton W. Burgess

“ They know. Certainly the world never looked darker for any one than it did for them when the terrible gun of a hunter broke Mr. Quack's wing on the Big River and ended all their dreams of a home in the far Northland. Then, through the help of Jerry Muskrat, they found the lonely pond of Paddy the Beaver deep in the Green Forest, and there, because their secret had been well kept, presently they found peace and hope and then happiness. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ You cannot meet any one without learning something from him if you keep your ears open and your eyes open. Every one is at least a little different from every one else, and the more people you know, the more you may learn. Peter Rabbit knows this, and that is one reason he always is so eager to find out about other people. He had left Jimmy Skunk and Bobby Coon in the Green Forest and had headed for the Smiling Pool to see if Grandfather Frog was awake yet. ”

“ I know of just the lonesomest kind of a lonesome pond, and you won't have to fly a stroke to get to it. If you are smart enough not to be caught by Reddy Fox or Hooty the Owl or Billy Mink or any of those people who hunt for a living, there isn't any reason I know of why you shouldn't spend the summer there in peace and comfort. ”

“ He is smart, my cousin Blacky is, and if he will help me look for Mr. Quack, we'll find him if he is alive.”
“That will be splendid!” cried Peter, clapping his hands. “But aren't you afraid of those terrible guns, Sammy?”
“Not when the hunters are trying for Ducks,” replied Sammy. “If there is a Duck anywhere in sight, they won't shoot at poor little me or even at Blacky, though they would shoot at him any other time. You see, they know that shooting at us would frighten the Ducks. Blacky knows all about the Big River. In the winter he often gets considerable of his food along its banks. ”

“ So Peter stayed over near the Smiling Pool and hoped with all his might that Reddy Fox or Old Man Coyote would not take it into his head to come hunting over there. As luck would have it, neither of them did, and Peter had a very pleasant time gossiping with Jerry Muskrat, listening to the sweet voices of unseen singers in the Smiling Pool,—the Hylas, which some people call peepers,—and eating the carrot which Farmer Brown's boy had left for him. ”

“ I'm curious right now. I'm wondering what brings you to the Smiling Pool when you never have been here before. It is the last place in the world I ever expected to find you.”
“That's why I'm here,” replied Mrs. Quack. “I hope others feel the same way. I came here because I just HAD to find some place where people wouldn't expect to find me and so wouldn't come looking for me. Little Joe Otter saw me yesterday on the Big River and told me of this place, and so, because I just had to go somewhere, I came here.”
Peter's eyes opened very wide with surprise. ”

“ It sometimes is a very good plan to tell your troubles to some one who will listen with sympathy. It was so with Mrs. Quack. She had kept her troubles locked in her own heart so long that it did her good to pour them all out to Peter.
“Mr. Quack and I spent a very comfortable winter way down in the sunny Southland,” said she with a far-away look. “It was very warm and nice down there, and there were a great many other Ducks spending the winter with us. The place where we were was far from the homes of men, and it was only once in a long while that we had to watch out for terrible guns. ”

“ Sometimes those terrible two-legged creatures would be hiding in the very middle of the wildest, most lonely looking marshes. They would be covered with grass so that we couldn't see them. Then, as we flew over them, would come the bang, bang, bang, bang of terrible guns, and always some of our flock would drop. We would have to leave them behind, for we knew if we wanted to live we must get beyond the reach of those terrible guns. ”

“ It wouldn't be so bad if a hunter would be satisfied to kill just one Duck, just as Reddy Fox is, but he seems to want to kill EVERY Duck. Foxes and Hawks and Owls catch a good many young Ducks, just as they do young Rabbits, but you know how we feel about that. They only hunt when they are hungry, and they hunt fairly. When, they have got enough to make a dinner, they stop. They keep our wits sharp. If we do not keep out of their way, it is our own fault. ”

“ Peter and Jerry could see that one of the long feathers was missing. “I thought I was flying high enough to be safe,” said she, “but when I reached the Big River there was a bang from the bushes on the bank, and something cut that feather out of my wing, and I felt a sharp pain in my side. It made me feel quite ill for a while, and the place is very sore now, but I guess I'm lucky that it was no worse. It is very hard work to know just how far those terrible guns can throw things at you. Next time I will fly higher.” ”

“ It takes a lot of strength to fly as we fly, and strength requires plenty of food. Mr. Quack knew all the best feeding-places, for he had made the long journey several times, so every day he would lead the way to one of these. He always chose the wildest and most lonely looking places he could find, as far as possible from the homes of men, but even then he was never careless. He would lead us around back and forth over the place he had chosen, and we would all look with all our might for signs of danger. ”

“ Probably that Duck has been shot at so many times on the Big River that she felt safer over here in the Smiling Pool, little as it is.”
Farmer Brown's boy had guessed exactly right, as you and I know, and as Peter Rabbit and Jerry Muskrat knew. “It's a shame, a downright shame that any one should want to shoot birds on their way to their nesting-grounds and that the law should let them if they do want to. Some people haven't any hearts; they're all stomachs. ”

“ 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 guess it is Old Mother Nature's way of keeping us wide-awake and sharpening our wits, and so making us better fitted to live.
“With these two-legged creatures with terrible guns, it is all different. We don't have any chance at all. If they hunted us as Reddy Fox does, tried to catch us themselves, it would be different. But their terrible guns kill when we are a long way off, and there isn't any way for us to know of the danger. And then, when one of them does kill a Duck, he isn't satisfied, but keeps on killing and killing and killing. ”

“ Sometimes we are driven out of a place by the bang, bang of the terrible guns and go on, only to find that we have caught up with Jack Frost, and that the ponds and the rivers are still covered with ice. ”

“ Quack nor I had lost a feather from those terrible guns that had banged at us all the way up and that had killed so many of our friends.
“We were flying up the Big River, and everything seemed perfectly safe. We were in a hurry, and when we came to a bend in the Big River, we flew quite close to shore, so as not to have to go way out and around. That was where Mr. Quack made a mistake. Even the smartest people will make mistakes sometimes, you know.”
Peter Rabbit nodded, “I know,” said he. “I've made them myself.” And then he wondered why Jerry Muskrat laughed right out. ”

“ Quack is alive, he probably is hiding among the rushes along the banks of the Big River?” he asked.
Peter nodded.
“And that she said that she doesn't dare go near the banks because of fear of the terrible guns?”
Again Peter nodded.
“Well, if that's the case, what is the matter with some of us who are not afraid of the terrible guns looking for Mr. Quack?” said Sammy. “I will, for one, and I'm quite sure that my cousin, Blacky the Crow, will, for another. He surely will if he thinks it will spoil the plans of any hunters. Blacky would go a long distance to do that. ”

“ You know Peter doesn't waste any time on his clothes. In fact, he doesn't seem to care a bit how he looks. He hasn't learned yet that it always pays to be as neat and clean as possible and that you must think well of yourself if you want others to think well of you. ”

“ It won't do for you to go there until after dark, because there is a hunter hiding very near Mr. Quack's hiding-place. Wait until it is dark and he has gone home. Then take my advice, and when you have found Mr. Quack, bring him right up here to the Smiling Pool. He can't fly, but he can swim up the Laughing Brook, and this is the safest place for both of you. Now good night and good luck.”
XIX. JERRY MUSKRAT'S GREAT IDEA
A friendly friend is a friend indeed When he proves a friend in the time of need. ”

“ He hates terrible guns and the men who use them. And he knows all about them. He has very sharp eyes, has Blacky, and he knows when a man has got a gun and when he hasn't. More than that, he can tell better than any one I know of just how near he can safely go to one of those terrible guns. ”

“ In the second place there are more dangers down there for young Ducks than up in the far Northland. In the third place there isn't room for all the Ducks to nest properly. And lastly there is a great longing for our real home, which Old Mother Nature has put in our hearts and which just MAKES us go. ”

“ Quack in the pond of Paddy the Beaver.}
Oh, those were happy days indeed for Mr. and Mrs. Quack in the pond of Paddy the Beaver, and in their joy they quite forgot for a time the terrible journey which had brought them there. But finally the Ducklings grew up, and when Jack Frost came in the fall, the whole family started on the long journey to the sunny Southland. I hope they got there safely, don't you?
Among those whom Mr. and Mrs. Quack came to know very well while they lived in the pond of Paddy the Beaver was that funny fellow who wears rings on his tail—Bobby Coon. ”

“ Quack!” exclaimed Sammy in surprise. “Where under the sun did you get acquainted with Mrs. Quack? What's the matter with her? She always has looked to me quite able to help herself.”
“Well, she isn't. That is, she needs others to help her just now,” replied Peter, “and I've been most thinking my head off trying to find a way to help her.” Then he told Sammy how he had met Mrs. Quack at the Smiling Pool and how terrible her long journey up from the sunny Southland had been, and how Mr. Quack had been shot by a hunter with a terrible gun, and how poor Mrs. ”

“ They said that if they did reach the nesting-place in the far North, they couldn't have nests or eggs or young because they had no mates, so what was the use? Besides, they hoped that if they waited around they might find their mates. They thought they might not have been killed, but just hurt, and might be able to get away from those hunters. So they left us and swam back towards that terrible place, calling for their lost mates, and it was the saddest sound. ”

“ I'm going back to the dear Old Briar-patch to think it over, and I guess the sooner I start the better, for that looks to me like Reddy Fox over there, and he's headed this way.”
So off for home started Peter, lipperty-lipperty-lip, as fast as he could go, and all the way there he was turning over in his mind what Mrs. Quack had told him and trying to think of some way to help her.
XIII. PETER TELLS ABOUT MRS. QUACK
To get things done, if you'll but try, You'll always find there is a way. What you yourself can't do alone The chances are another may. ”

“ Quack, “and those hunters do other things just as unfair. Sometimes awful storms will come up, and we just have to find places where we can rest. Those hunters will hide near those places and shoot at us when we are so tired that we can hardly move a wing. ”

“ She never left them save to get a little food and just enough exercise to keep her well and strong, and when she did leave them, she always carefully pulled soft down over them to keep them warm while she was away. ”