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Updated: June 26, 2025
Some flew this way and some ran that way and some danced the other way. You see, Jerry Muskrat had asked them to carry his invitations to a party at the Big Rock in the Smiling Pool. Of course every one said that they would be delighted to go to Jerry Muskrat's party. Round Mr. Sun shone his very brightest.
The pool was now quiet and, as a muskrat's memory is short, he once more decided to take an airing. At a place where a little sandy beach sloped to the water he climbed out and, seating himself, began a leisurely toilet. With his claws he combed out his fur until it was dry and fluffy and shone with a silky luster where the warm sun touched it.
Though desperately hurt, so desperately that his strong hind legs were almost useless, the brave little animal was not swerved from his purpose. Straight from his prison, no longer now a refuge, he dived and swam for home through the loud uproar. But the muskrat's small forelegs are of little use in swimming, so much so that as a rule he carries them folded under his chin while in the water.
"What is it that is so funny?" snapped Grandfather Frog, for nothing makes him so angry as to be laughed at. "Do you mean to say that anybody but Farmer Brown or Farmer Brown's boy could have cut down such a big tree as that?" asked Billy. "Why, that would be as hard as to drag the tree here." "Jerry Muskrat's big cousin from the North could do it, and I believe he did," replied Grandfather Frog.
Now, Peter Mink learned that there was a muskrat who had built him a house in the bank of the duck pond. And as soon as Peter found out where the muskrat's home was, he drove away the owner and began to live in the house himself. He found it very comfortable. And he caught a duck every day, until at last Farmer Green noticed that his ducks were disappearing.
Muskrat's reply that right away she made up her mind that he should have a finer house than any of the others, so she took him over to a quiet little pool, where the water was not too deep and she showed him how to build a wonderful house of mud and rushes and twigs, with a nice warm bedroom lined with grass above the water, and an entrance down under the water, so that no one except those who still lived most of the time in the water could possibly get into it.
Thus the greenhorn from the city is apt to take the muskrat's nightly plunges for the sound of deer leaping into water; and just in the same way does the sleepless tenderfoot mistake the thudding footfalls of the midnight rabbit for those of moose or caribou running round his tent. Muskrats are fairly sociable and help one another in their work.
Soon they began to wish that they hadn't come to Jerry Muskrat's party. When he found that they were not having a good time, poor Jerry Muskrat felt very badly indeed. You see he lives in the water so much that he had quite forgotten that there was anyone who couldn't swim, or he never, never would have invited all the little meadow folks who live on dry land.
The drowsy summer days passed and with a swirl of snowflakes the Frost King descended upon the world. The muskrat's playground was roofed over with ice, blue as steel, and the wilderness lay under a glistening white mantle. For the fat old muskrat, however, the winter held no terrors.
Pull as he would, he could not loosen his foot from the cruel jaws. All would have been over with him had not the Hermit at that moment chanced upon the pool and, seeing his plight, come to the rescue. The muskrat entered his den with a bleeding foot but a thankful heart. It must not be supposed, however, that the muskrat's life was one continual round of sudden dangers and narrow escapes.
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