you needn’t think, just because you’ve been hearing about chaik jay’s foolishness, that he and tad coon had all the fun there was. not a bit of it. things were happening round tommy peele’s barn at the very same time.
of course tommy peele knew about most of them. and maybe you think he wasn’t puzzled! the very first morning, while it was still raining, he came sloshing down to the barn with his tall rubber boots on—because it was so wet he needed them. and splash! went somebody into the trough where the cattle drink. of course it was doctor muskrat. he was just examining it because it was the queerest kind of a pond he’d ever seen, and he was a little bit scary because he didn’t feel at home yet.
he swam all the way down it in about two paw-strokes, hunting for a lily leaf to hide under while he peeked out to see who was coming. of course there wasn’t any lily leaf. there was no mud for one to grow in—because tommy kept the trough too clean. and there weren’t any snails, or water beetles, or anything but just water, as fresh as the water out in the cool, deep middle of his own pond. it was a great deal warmer, and it had a queer, woody taste that came from the rain water dripping in from the shingles of the barn. no wonder the wise old fellow was puzzled.
the doctor climbed up on the edge of the trough and settled his fur for a comfortable visit with his little boy friend. but he didn’t stay there, for tommy had already unlocked the gate and the cows came rushing in, shouldering each other to get the first drink. the wise old muskrat slipped between the trough and the barn to wait until they were gone again.
that was really sensible, because he’d done something to make the cows angry with him—though he didn’t mean to. they began snorting and puffing. “ugh! what an awful smell!” mooed one of them. “somebody’s been bathing in our drink. i’d like to get my horn on whoever it was! i’d teach him not to do a trick like that again!”
“mff-ff-ff!” sniffed the red cow—she was a big, happy-looking one by now, not a bit like the wild, scary thing who ran away from tommy in the spring. “i like that smell. it reminds me of the kindest beast i ever knew, excepting dear little nibble rabbit. it reminds me of wise old doctor muskrat, who owns the pond at the end of the woods and fields.” and she took a sentimental sip of it.
doctor muskrat was fearfully ruffled because the cows made all that fuss over his dip into their drinking trough. he thought they were just putting on airs. he put up his head between the trough and the barn, where he knew they couldn’t hurt him. “hoot-toot!” said he severely. “what’s all this about a dive that didn’t wet my fur? many’s the time you’ve stepped into my pond. did i ever snap a word at you?”
“yes, indeed!” put in the red cow. “step in! i’ve seen you stamping flies in it till you had it so muddy you couldn’t see your own hooves. i’ll teach you to sniff at my friends!” she laid her horn into the cow who did the first complaining with a shove that sent her staggering. there might have been some lively argument if the wise white cow hadn’t stopped them.
“here, here!” she interrupted. “we didn’t know who we were sniffing at. a sensible beast like doctor muskrat will understand there was no offense meant.” she lowered her head respectfully and spoke in her flutiest voice. “you’ll pardon me for explaining, sir, that this isn’t a pond. the water doesn’t run through it. the wind doesn’t blow over it; it goes stale as fast as a mud puddle.”
“you don’t say!” exclaimed the doctor. “forgive my mistake, madam. if i’d seen the least trace of green scum, which is the usual sign of still water, i wouldn’t have put my paw in it, i do assure you.”
“nor we our noses,” mooed the cow, still very politely.
“to be sure! to be sure!” nodded doctor muskrat sagely. “a sour drink makes sorry fur. but what’s to be done? and what will tommy peele think of me?” he was more embarrassed than ever when the little boy came squeezing in between the cows, as though he wanted a drink, too.
but tommy had just noticed the cows weren’t drinking. it didn’t take him long to guess why, but he never thought of blaming his wild friend. “why, doctor muskrat!” he exclaimed, as glad as bobby robin when he sees a worm, “whatever are you doing here?” and he knocked out the plug in the bottom of the trough and let the spoiled water go whirling and gurgling out through a hole. doctor muskrat’s eyes popped at that, i can tell you, but when tommy turned on the tap and let fresh water come splashing in, the old fellow couldn’t understand it at all. he climbed up to examine it; he tried the pipe with his chisel teeth, and he licked the drops that splashed on his whiskers.
“well!” he gasped. “i’ve seen maple sap drip from a twig in the spring, but this is no twig, and it’s no sap that’s dripping from it. what is it?”
but if doctor muskrat was excited about seeing the water run, you ought to have seen him when tommy turned it off again. he bit it and he licked it and he squeezed it and he squinted up the hole, first with one eye, and then with the other. at last he sat down to watch it, like tad coon watches a mouse hole. he watched it till he got a crick in his neck, but still he wouldn’t take his eye off it. he was going to know about it the next time it began. he had an idea the rain was doing it—somehow or other. he couldn’t imagine a puddle that wasn’t made by the rain.
the stale water tommy had let run out on the ground made a fine big puddle for the raindrops to patter in. but by and by the pattering grew into a splashing, and the splashing into a quacking. he just had to look away to see what that noise was. three big white ducks were playing in it. “quack!” one shouted. “i got a drowned earth worm!”
“quawk!” called back another. “i’ve got a grain of corn and a daddy-longlegs!”
the third was silent for a moment over his beakful. then he spit it out and said quite cheerfully: “i had a nice round pebble, but i guess it’s too big to swallow. flapper wins this time.”
“hooray!” shouted flapper, standing up on his toes and beating the air with his wings as though he were going to fly. but he didn’t. he just settled down on his feet again, gave a shake of his tail and would have waddled right off if he hadn’t caught sight of doctor muskrat’s shiny black eyes staring at him. “who’s that?” he asked in duck talk. and they all stared at the brown, furry beast.
“it’s doctor muskrat. who are you, and whatever were you doing?”
didn’t those ducks just blink their yellow eyes when that brown, furry beast answered them back in their own language? he’d learned it from the mallards who visit his pond.
“we’re the jolly old waddle ducks,” quacked the one they called flapper. “we’re playing a game of fish the puddle. since you can talk duck talk so well, you might as well come along and learn it. it’s lots of fun. come on!”
“come along,” teased another. “we’ll show you all the ponds—lots of them are deep enough to swim in now. we’ll show you where the apples have dropped in the orchard, and where the garden snails have hidden, and the leak in the corn crib where the grains fall through——”
“quawk! there isn’t much about this place we don’t get a beak into. we even pick over the pigs’ pail before they ever see it. just now we got a drink of the warm milk they feed the calf. ho! but this is a fine place to live!” laughed the third, his fat body shaking and the little curly feathers sticking up so cheerfully in his tail.
“do you live here always?” asked doctor muskrat in surprise. “don’t you ever fly away?” all the ducks he knew flew south for the winter.
“we’re not wild ducks,” flapper explained. “we’re tame. we hear great tales from the wild ones. some of them stop in and have a feed with us most every season. great tales! that must be a gay life. but we’re so fat we can’t keep up with them.” he sighed, but he blinked so mischievously doctor muskrat could see he wasn’t breaking his heart about it.
“you’re just as well off,” said doctor muskrat. “white birds are so easy to see somebody always catches them.”
“are you wild yourself?” they asked curiously. “tell us what it’s like.”
so doctor muskrat strolled along with them, and fine friends they were, i can tell you, always happy and good-natured. they made the old doctor feel almost as much at home as he did in his own pond.
