Read Ebook: Little Joe Otter by Burgess Thornton W Thornton Waldo Cady Harrison Illustrator

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Ebook has 305 lines and 29864 words, and 7 pages

One morning he saw Mrs. Joe out with the two babies. . . . . . . . 25

Gentle Mistress Moon saw a queer procession. . . . . . . . . 89

"Well, son," said he, "what did you see?". . . . . . . . . . . 184

Of all the little Quaddies who live in the Green Meadows, the Smiling Pool and the Green Forest, none is more surprising than Little Joe Otter. He is full of surprises, is Little Joe. He has a way of suddenly bobbing up and just as suddenly disappearing, which makes him one of the hardest of all the little people to get acquainted with. Just when you think there is no one around, up bobs Little Joe and gives you a surprise. Just when you are watching him, down he goes and you never see him again.

And when you are acquainted with him, he is just as surprising. He is full of pranks and dearly loves to play. He is a wonderful swimmer, as no one knows better than those who live in the Smiling Pool. At times he is a great traveler in spite of his short legs, and he knows more of the Great World than most of his neighbors. In winter he swims under the ice and makes slippery slides down the snowy banks. In summer he makes slippery slides on muddy banks.

It is his wonderful swimming power which enables him to do many things in secret. You see, when he disappears under the water, his neighbors on land have no way of knowing where he goes or what he does. Billy Mink and Jerry Muskrat are the only ones who know much about Little Joe Otter, and even they do not know as much as they might, or as they think they do.

Peter Rabbit had missed Little Joe Otter in the Smiling Pool this spring. He had asked Jerry Muskrat and Billy Mink where Little Joe was.

"Oh!" replied Jerry Muskrat. "Probably he is on one of his foolish long journeys. What any one wants to leave the Smiling Pool for is more than I can understand. Probably if you go down to the Big River, you will find him fishing there."

Just then there was a sudden splash right behind Jerry Muskrat. It was so sudden that it startled Jerry, and the first thing that Jerry does when he is startled is to dive. He did this time. When he came up, Peter Rabbit was still sitting on the bank of the Smiling Pool.

"What was it that frightened me?" asked Jerry.

Peter grinned. "I'm sure I don't know. All I saw was a splash in the water."

"Chuga-rum!" cried Grandfather Frog in his deepest, gruffest voice. "If I know anything about it, it was Little Joe Otter himself. I think, Jerry Muskrat, if you go far enough up the Laughing Brook, you will find that Little Joe is up there and not down at the Big River. I saw something that looked to me very much like a dark form swimming under water in that direction."

"I don't believe it," replied Jerry. "Little Joe hasn't been in the Smiling Pool in ever and ever so long. It would be a good thing if Little Joe would settle down. He ought to have a house the same as I have. I never did believe there was any good in this roaming around."

Just then there were two splashes right where the Laughing Brook comes into the Smiling Pool. Peter and Grandfather Frog and Jerry looked hastily in that direction. Then they stared at each other.

"Did I or didn't I see double?" Peter demanded. "It looked to me much like two Little Joe Otters!"

"It looked to me very much the same way," said Jerry.

Grandfather Frog looked thoughtful. "I have a suspicion," said he, "that little Joe Otter is springing a surprise on us. Have any of you heard of a Mrs. Joe?"

Peter looked at Jerry and Jerry looked at Peter. "Do you suppose it can be true?" they both exclaimed together.

No one had ever heard of a Mrs. Joe Otter, yet if there wasn't a Mrs. Joe how was it that Grandfather Frog and Peter Rabbit and Jerry Muskrat, all three, had seemed to see two little brown heads where the Laughing Brook comes into the Smiling Pool. For a while they talked it over between themselves. Each was sure that he had seen two. It was only for a moment and then there was nothing to be seen. It was all very mysterious.

"There must be something the matter with our eyes," declared Jerry. "Little Joe is such an uneasy fellow that he never would be content to settle down with a home of his own. Besides, wherever would he have found Mrs. Joe, if there is one?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," said Peter, hopping up. "I'm going to go right straight up the Laughing Brook and look for his home. If he's got one, I don't believe he can hide it from me." With this off started Peter, lipperty-lipperty-lip.

"Good luck to you, Peter. If you find anything come back and tell us," shouted Jerry Muskrat.

Up the Laughing Brook went Peter. Now he had no more idea than the man in the moon what kind of a home Little Joe Otter would be likely to have. He knew that Jerry Muskrat has two kinds of homes--one a hole in a bank, and the other a house in the Smiling Pool. He knew that Paddy the Beaver builds the same kinds of homes, only better. He knew that Billy Mink sometimes makes his home in a hollow log and sometimes under an old pile of brush and sometimes in a hole under a stump. Billy is not particular as to where his home is. But Peter didn't know where to look for Little Joe's home.

"He lives in the water even more than Billy Mink does, almost as much as Jerry Muskrat does, so I guess he probably has a home right close to the water," said Peter. Then another thought struck him. He remembered that Jerry Muskrat makes his entrance to his home in the bank under water where it cannot be seen from the shore. If Little Joe were to do the same thing, he, Peter, might just as well look for a needle in a haystack. However, Peter is not easily discouraged. He hopped along, up one bank of the Laughing Brook, looking and looking for holes. Every hole he came to he examined with the greatest care. He sniffed and sniffed at each one, hoping to get a whiff of Little Joe Otter. When he had gone a long way up the Laughing Brook he crossed it on an old log and went back down the other side, looking and looking just the same.

But with all Peter's looking, he didn't find a thing. More than this, he saw no signs that Little Joe Otter had been up the Laughing Brook for a long time. He was just about to give up, discouraged, when in a deep little pool he heard a splash. He turned quickly. He was just in time to see Little Joe Otter swimming away with a fish in his mouth.

"Hi, Little Joe!" he called. "Are you living up this way?"

Little Joe grinned in spite of the fish in his mouth. "Certainly I am," said Little Joe. "Come call on me and meet Mrs. Joe."

With that Little Joe suddenly disappeared under water, and though Peter sat for a long, long time watching, he saw nothing more of Little Joe.

"Now however am I going to make a call when I don't know where to call?" muttered Peter, as he started for the dear Old Briar-patch. "Anyway, I have found out that there is a Mrs. Joe!" he added triumphantly.

Now though Peter Rabbit didn't know it, he had walked right straight over the home of Little Joe Otter. Many other little forest people had walked over that home without guessing it. You see, Little Joe is just as smart in making a home as he is in everything else. Little Joe believes that a home is just for those who live there, and therefore that it is a secret which no one else should know. He had found Mrs. Joe far away on the Big River and had brought her back with him up the Laughing Brook to the Smiling Pool and through the Smiling Pool farther up the Laughing Brook to the place he had picked out for a home. They had come right through the Smiling Pool while Grandfather Frog was sitting on his green lily pad and Jerry Muskrat was sitting on the Big Rock talking to Peter Rabbit, who was sitting on the bank. Only once had they shown their little brown heads above the water, and that was when Peter and Jerry and Grandfather Frog had thought they saw double. You see, Mrs. Joe was very, very shy, and so Little Joe wanted her to become acquainted with the Laughing Brook and her new home before he introduced her to his friends and neighbors.

The place he had chosen for a home was close beside one of the deepest pools in the Laughing Brook. Growing close to the bank was a big tree with spreading roots. The bank was steep and mossy. All about grew the Green Forest. It was very lovely there. Also it was very quiet, and you probably would have called it very lonely. But it was just such a place as Otters love.

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Joe, when she saw it. "Is this where our home is to be?"

Mrs. Joe dived into the little pool. She was gone a long time and Little Joe waited on the bank anxiously. When she came up she looked very happy. "It is perfectly lovely!" she cried. "It is the finest place for a home I ever have seen. Let's begin to make it right away, Little Joe!"

Little Joe didn't wait for her to change her mind. He remembered how many times Polly Chuck had changed her mind before Johnny Chuck succeeded in getting her to let him dig their home under the old apple tree in the far corner of the Old Orchard. "We'll begin right off," said he. And that is just what they did do.

Now you know Little Joe Otter can stay under water a long time. Mrs. Joe showed him just where she wanted the front door, deep down under water. Then they took turns making a long, nice hallway, slanting up from that under-water doorway. When it was high enough to be wholly above water they made the nicest little room, and then began a doorway which would lead out between two roots of the big tree. At first they didn't open this doorway, because you see they had no need of it. They just made the hall and left the door closed, so there wasn't a thing to show where their home was. When they wanted to go out, they just slid down their front hallway into the little pool and then swam clear across it before they came up. This was so that if any sharp eyes happened to see them, they never would guess where they had come from. When it was all done, they had just the best time ever.

Do you know that you can learn things by sitting perfectly still? You can. That is, you can if you use your eyes and use your ears and all the other senses that Old Mother Nature has given you. Peter Rabbit discovered it quite by accident. You know how curious he is. It seems as if his curiosity never can be satisfied.

On the day that Little Joe Otter invited him to call at his home and then promptly disappeared, Peter could think of nothing but that home, and wonder where it was. Whenever he got the chance he went over to the Green Forest to look for Little Joe and his home. He had hopped up and down the banks of the Laughing Brook until his feet ached, and he was just as wise as before.

At last one day, he sat down just a little way from a great big tree with spreading roots near the bank of a little pool in the Laughing Brook. He was tired. Also he was discouraged. "I don't believe Little Joe has a home at all," he muttered. Then, because he was tired, he squatted down in a little brown heap and closed his eyes. How long he slept Peter never knew. When he awoke it was very, very still there in the Green Forest. He felt rested and therefore in a better frame of mind. He decided he would sit there a little longer and enjoy his beautiful surrounding's before going back to the dear Old Briar-patch.

Now when Peter sits perfectly still, he is very hard to see. He looks like nothing so much as a little brown heap of dead leaves, and that was the way he was looking then. But all the time he was watching this way and that way to see what he could discover. Quite without any warning at all there was a rustling of leaves between two of the roots of the old tree a little way off. Peter didn't have to turn his head to look. You see, his eyes are set so far back that he can see without turning his head. What he saw made him catch his breath and open his eyes wider than ever. What do you think it was? Why it was a little brown baby rolling and tumbling in the leaves!

Peter had never seen a baby like it before. While he was watching and wondering whose baby it could be, another joined it. They tumbled and rolled over each other. They played tug-of-war with a little stick, each holding one end. They made believe bite each other. It was very rough play, but the rougher it was the better they seemed to like it. Peter watched them for a long time. Then, because he had a cramp in one of his feet, he moved ever so little, and in doing so he rustled the leaves. Instantly the two brown babies disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them up. Peter waited, but they didn't appear again.

At last his curiosity proved too much for him. He hopped over to the spreading roots of the old tree and there was the nicest little doorway he had ever seen. He knew then where the two brown babies had disappeared.

"I wonder," muttered Peter, "whose babies those were. I wonder--" A sudden thought popped into his head. It made him jump right up in the air. "Do you suppose that those could have been Little Joe Otter's babies?" he exclaimed right out loud to nobody in particular. Then, because he was so full of his discovery, he scampered away to the dear Old Briar-patch to tell Mrs. Peter all about it.

Peter Rabbit could not keep away from the Green Forest. No, Sir, he couldn't. He just couldn't do it. You see, having discovered those two queer, brown babies under a big tree on the bank of the Laughing Brook, he just had to go back there every chance he could get to watch them. So, whenever he could, he slipped over there to watch. He kept as still as still could be, and not once did those little brown babies suspect that he was near. Every day they came out to play, but at the least sound they would disappear in that snug home, the doorway of which was between the roots of the big tree.

After a little Peter discovered that there was a school in the Green Forest, just as there was a school at Johnny Chuck's home in the Old Orchard, and another where Danny Meadow Mouse had his home on the Green Meadows. You see, wherever there are babies there has to be a school. This is one of the laws of Old Mother Nature. Peter had been quite right when he had guessed that these babies were the children of Little Joe Otter. At first they seemed to do nothing but tumble over each other and play; it was very rough play, the roughest play, that Peter ever had seen. He didn't guess that in that play those two brown babies were learning something, but they were. They were learning how to use their legs and teeth and bodies.

At first Peter had seen nothing of Little Joe Otter or Mrs. Joe, but he noticed that at the least rustle of a leaf the two brown babies disappeared in their home, and by this he knew that they had been taught that great law of all the little wild people, which is that safety is the first and most important lesson to be learned.

Then one morning he saw Mrs. Joe out with the two babies, and they were having a grand frolic. Mrs. Joe would get hold of one end of a stick and the two little Otters would get hold of the other end of the stick and try to pull it away from her. In this way they were learning how to grow strong and to take care of themselves.

Then Mrs. Joe took them a little way into the woods. It just happened that Reddy Fox had been along that way the night before. She showed them his tracks and made them smell of them, and when she did this she growled, and thus they knew that Reddy was an enemy to be watched out for.

Later, right in the midst of one of their grand frolics, Sammy Jay suddenly began to scream. Peter knew perfectly well what that scream meant. He knew by the noise that Sammy had discovered somebody in the Green Forest. Of course Mrs. Otter knew, and right away she chased her two brown babies into their home and followed them. Thus they learned that a screaming Jay is a warning to watch out for danger.

One thing puzzled Peter very much. He knew that Little Joe Otter lives in the water most of the time, and that of course Mrs. Joe does the same thing. "I wonder why those youngsters are not taught to swim," thought Peter. "I should suppose that a swimming lesson would be one of the very first things they would get."

Peter puzzled over this a great deal as one day followed another and still the Otter babies never once went near the water. They grew fast, and had the very best times ever were, but always on the land. In fact, Peter suspected by the way they acted that they didn't like the water any better than he did, and you know he doesn't like it at all. Mrs. Otter, and sometimes Little Joe, brought them fish to eat, and sometimes their mother took them on little short hunting trips, but always on the land. It was too much for Peter; it seemed to him that those Otter children were being brought up altogether wrong.

One morning Peter Rabbit was a little late in getting over to the home of Little Joe Otter. When he got there, there was not a sign of the two brown Otter children at the doorway of their home between the roots of the big tree. "It must be," thought Peter, "that they have gone off hunting. I wonder if I can find them if I look for them."

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