The Adventures of Poor Mrs Quack | Page 3

of feeding in that
particular place and had grown to feel perfectly safe there, they have
hidden close by until a lot of us were feeding together and then fired
their terrible guns and killed a lot of my friends and dreadfully hurt a
lot more. I wouldn't trust one of them, not ONE!" "Oh, how dreadful!"

cried Peter, looking quite as shocked as he felt. Then he added eagerly,
"But our Farmer Brown's boy wouldn't do anything like that. You
haven't the least thing to fear from him."
"Perhaps not," said Mrs. Quack, shaking her head doubtfully, "but I
wouldn't trust him. I wouldn't trust him as far off as I could see him.
The Smiling Pool is a very nice place, although it is dreadfully small,
but if Farmer Brown's boy is likely to come over here, I guess I better
look for some other place, though goodness knows where I will find
one where I will feel perfectly safe."
"You are safe right here, if you have sense enough to stay here,"
declared Jerry Muskrat rather testily. "Don't you suppose Peter and I
know what we are talking about?"
"I wish I could believe so," returned Mrs. Quack sadly, "but if you had
been through what I've been through, and suffered what I've suffered,
you wouldn't believe any place safe, and you certainly wouldn't trust
one of those two-legged creatures. Why, for weeks they haven't given
me a chance to get a square meal, and--and--I don't know what has
become of Mr. Quack, and I'm all alone!" There was a little sob in her
voice and tears in her eyes.
"Tell us all about it," begged Peter. "Perhaps we can help you."

III
MRS. QUACK TELLS ABOUT HER HOME
"It's a long story," said Mrs. Quack, shaking the tears from her eyes,
"and I hardly know where to begin."
"Begin at the beginning," said Jerry Muskrat. "Your home is
somewhere way up in the Northland where Honker the Goose lives,
isn't it?"
Mrs. Quack nodded. "I wish I were there this very minute," she replied,

the tears coming again. "But sometimes I doubt if ever I'll get there
again. You folks who don't have to leave your homes every year don't
know how well off you are or how much you have to be thankful for."
"I never could understand what people want to leave their homes for,
anyway," declared Peter.
"We don't leave because we want to, but because we HAVE to," replied
Mrs. Quack, "and we go back just as soon as we can. What would you
do if you couldn't find a single thing to eat?"
"I guess I'd starve," replied Peter simply.
"I guess you would, and that is just what we would do, if we didn't take
the long journey south when Jack Frost freezes everything tight up
there where my home is," returned Mrs. Quack. "He comes earlier up
there and stays twice as long as he does here, and makes ten times as
much ice and snow. We get most of our food in the water or in the mud
under the water, as of course you know, and when the water is frozen,
there isn't a scrap of anything we can get to eat. We just HAVE to come
south. It isn't because we want to, but because we must! There is
nothing else for us to do."
"Then I don't see what you want to make your home in such a place
for," said practical Peter. "I should think you would make it where you
can live all the year around."
"I was born up there, and I love it just as you love the dear Old
Briar-patch," replied Mrs. Quack simply. "It is home, and there is no
place like home. Besides, it is a very beautiful and a very wonderful
place in summer. There is everything that Ducks and Geese love. We
have all we want of the food we love best. Everywhere is shallow water
with tall grass growing in it."
"Huh!" interrupted Peter, "I wouldn't think much of a place like that."
"That's because you don't know what is good," snapped Jerry Muskrat.
"It would suit me," he added, with shining eyes.

"There are the dearest little islands just made for safe nesting-places,"
continued Mrs. Quack, without heeding the interruptions. "And the
days are long, and it is easy to hide, and there is nothing to fear, for
two-legged creatures with terrible guns never come there."
"If there is nothing to fear, why do you care about places to hide?"
demanded Peter.
"Well, of course, we have enemies, just as you do here, but they are
natural enemies,--Foxes and Minks and Hawks and Owls," explained
Mrs. Quack. "Of course, we have to watch out for them