The Adventures of Poor Mrs Quack | Page 8

nodded and held up one wing. 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."
"Where have you been since you left us?" asked Peter.
"Eight in the middle of the Big River," replied Mrs. Quack. "It was the
only safe place. I didn't dare go near either shore, and I'm nearly
starved. I haven't had a mouthful to eat to-day."
Peter opened his mouth to tell her of the wheat and corn left by Farmer
Brown's boy and then closed it again. He would let her find it for
herself. If he told her about it, she might suspect a trick and refuse to go
near the place. He never had seen any one so suspicious, not even Old
Man Coyote. But he couldn't blame her, after all she had been through.
So he kept still and waited. He was learning, was Peter Rabbit. He was
learning a great deal about Mrs. Quack.

VIII
MRS. QUACK HAS A GOOD MEAL AND A REST
There's nothing like a stomach full To make the heart feel light; To
chase away the clouds of care And make the world seem bright.
That's a fact. 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 don't suppose I'll find much to eat here, but a little in peace and
safety is better than a feast with worry and danger," said she, swimming
over to the brown, broken-down bulrushes on one side of the Smiling
Pool and appearing to stand on her head as she plunged it under water
and searched in the mud on the bottom for food. Peter Rabbit looked
over at Jerry Muskrat sitting on the Big Rock, and Jerry winked. In a
minute up bobbed the head of Mrs. Quack, and there was both a
pleased and a worried look on her face. She had found some of the corn
left there by Farmer Brown's boy. At once she swam out to the middle
of the Smiling Pool, looking suspiciously this way and that way.
"There is corn over there," said she. "Do you know how it came there?"
"I saw Farmer Brown's boy throwing something over there," replied
Peter. "Didn't we tell you that he would be good to you?"
"Quack, quack, quack! I've seen that kind of kindness too often to be
fooled by it," snapped Mrs. Quack. "He probably saw me leave in a
hurry and put this corn here, hoping that I would come back and find it
and make up my mind to stay here a while. He thinks that if I do, he'll
have a chance to hide near enough to shoot me. I didn't believe this
could be a safe place for me, and now I know it. I'll stay here to-night,
but to-morrow I'll try to find some other place. Oh, dear, it's dreadful
not to have any place at all to feel safe in." There were tears in her eyes.
Peter thought of the dear Old Briar-patch and how safe he always felt
there, and he felt a great pity for poor Mrs. Quack, who couldn't feel
safe anywhere. And then right away he grew indignant that she should
be so distrustful of Farmer Brown's boy, though if he had stopped to
think, he would have remembered that once he was just as distrustful.
"I should think," said Peter with a great deal of dignity, "that you might

at least believe what Jerry Muskrat and I, who live here all the time, tell
you. We ought to know Farmer Brown's boy if any one does, and we
tell you that he won't harm a feather of you."
"He won't get the chance!" snapped Mrs. Quack.