“Oh, tell me, you and you and you,    If it may hap you've ever heard
  Of all that wond'rous is and great
   The greatest is the spoken word?”
 
 
It's true. It's the truest thing that ever was. If you don't believe it, you just go ask Jerry Muskrat. He'll tell you it's true, and Jerry knows. You see, it's this way: Words are more than just sounds. Oh, my, yes! They are little messengers, and once they have been sent out, you can't call them back. No, Sir, you can't call them back, and sometimes that is a very sad thing, because—well, you see these little messengers always carry something to some one else, and that something may be anger or hate or fear or an untruth, and it is these things which make most of the trouble in this world. Or that something may be love or sympathy or helpfulness or kindness, and it is these things which put an end to most of the troubles in this world.
 
Just take the ease of Jerry Muskrat. There he sat on the new dam, which had made the strange pond in the Green Forest, shaking with fear until his teeth chattered, as he watched a stranger very, very much bigger than he climb up on the dam. Jerry was afraid, because he had seen that the stranger could swim as well as he could, and as Jerry had no secret burrows there, he knew that he couldn't get away from the stranger if he wanted to. Somehow, Jerry knew without being told that the stranger had built the dam, and you know Jerry had twice made a hole in the dam to let the water out of the strange pond into the Laughing Brook. Jerry knew right down in his heart that if he had built that dam, he would be very, very angry with any one who tried to spoil it, and that is just ............