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Updated: June 26, 2025
Then cutting a willow stem beside her, she transformed it with two half cuts into a little spring-frame, over which she drew the late muskrat's over-coat. The whole operation did not consume five minutes. "Easy enough when you know how," admitted Sam sheepishly. "Hang it up to dry," she said, handing it over.
"Then I'll stay," said Paddy the Beaver, diving into the Smiling Pool with a great splash. And so one of Jerry Muskrat's greatest adventures ended in the finding of his biggest cousin, Paddy the Beaver. Now Jerry has a lot of cousins, and one of them lives on the Green Meadows not far from the Smiling Pool. His name is Danny Meadow Mouse, and Danny is forever having adventures too.
But in the muskrat's world, there under the safe ice, all was as tranquil as a May morning. The long green and brown water-weeds swayed softly in the faint current, with here and there a silvery young chub or an olive-brown sucker feeding lazily among them.
The roof of the lodge sloped somewhat toward the south, thus permitting the sun's warmth to penetrate the one loose place in the mass, the muskrat's ventilating shaft. In a snug room about a foot down from the roof of the dome, and well above the water line, he had made his bed of leaves and grass, where he could sleep snugly even when the winter gales shrieked overhead and the snow drifted deep.
Billy Mink ran around the edge of the Smiling Pool and turned down by the Laughing Brook. His eyes twinkled with mischief, and he hurried as only Billy can. As he passed Jerry Muskrat's house, Jerry saw him. "Hi, Billy Mink! Where are you going in such a hurry this fine morning?" he called. "To find Little Joe Otter. Have you seen anything of him?" replied Billy. "No," said Jerry.
He had no more fancy to be drowned in the muskrat's winding black tunnel, than under the clear daylight of the ice; so he turned away, and with red, angry eyes resumed his journey up-stream. The little muskrat, seeing that her enemy was disheartened, went on cheerfully to the clam-bed. Here she clawed up from the oozy bottom and devoured almost enough clams to make a meal for a full-grown man.
The Smiling Pool, the Laughing Brook, and the Green Meadows are Jerry Muskrat's little world. Now, as he sat on the Big Rock and looked about him, the Green Meadows were as lovely as ever. He could see no change in them. But the Laughing Brook had stopped laughing, and the Smiling Pool had stopped smiling.
They also were very tired, very hungry and very cross. When the three returned to the Lone Pine and found nothing there but the big head of cabbage, which none of them liked, the empty egg shells of old Gray Goose and Jerry Muskrat's clams, they straightway fell to accusing each other of having stolen the duck and the fat trout and the eggs and began to quarrel dreadfully.
Jerry had spent one winter in it, and he had decided to spend another there after he had fixed it up a little. So, as long as he didn't have to build a brand-new house, he could afford the time to watch his cousin Paddy. Perhaps he hoped that Paddy would ask his advice. But Paddy did nothing of the kind. He had seen Jerry Muskrat's house, and he had smiled.
"No!" snapped Grandfather Frog. "I never did, but I know all about him. He is a great worker, is this big cousin of yours, and he builds dams like this one we are sitting on." "I don't believe it!" cried Billy Mink. "I don't believe any cousin of Jerry Muskrat's ever built such a dam as this. Why, just look at that great tree trunk at the bottom!
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