If there was one thing that Tommy enjoyed above another, it was trapping. There were several reasons why he enjoyed it. In the first place, it took him out of doors with something definite to do. He loved the meadows and the woods and the pastures, and all the beauties of them with which Old Mother Nature is so .  
He loved to tramp along the Laughing and around the Smiling Pool. Always, no matter what the time of the year, there was something interesting to see. Now it was a flower new to him, or a bird that he had not seen before. Again it was a glimpse of one of the shy, fleet-footed little people who wear coats of fur. He liked these best of all because they were the hardest to surprise and study in their home life. And that was one reason why he enjoyed trapping so much. It was matching his wits against their wits. And one other reason was the money which he got for the .
 
So Tommy was glad when the late fall came and it was time to set traps and every morning make his rounds to see what he had caught. In the coldest part of the winter, when the snow was deep and the ice was thick, he stopped trapping, but he began again with the beginning of spring when the Laughing Brook was once more set free and the Smiling Pool no longer locked in icy .[62] It was then that the and the became most active, and their fur coats were still at their best. You see the more active they were, the more likely they were to step into one of his traps.
 
On this particular afternoon, after school, Tommy had come down to the Smiling Pool to set a few extra traps for muskrats. The trapping season, that is the season when the fur was still at its best, or “prime,” as the fur call it, would soon be at an end. He had set a trap on an old log which lay partly in and partly out of the water. He knew that the muskrats used this old log to sun themselves because one had off it as he came up. So he set a trap just under water on the end of the old log where the first who tried to climb out there would step in it.
 
“I’ll get one here, as sure as shooting,” said Tommy.
 
Then he found a little tussock, and he knew by the matted-down grass that it was a favorite resting place for muskrats. Here he set another trap and left some slices of carrot as bait.
 
By the merest accident, he found a hole in the bank and, from the look of it, he felt sure that it had been made by one of the little animals he wanted to catch. Right at the very entrance he set another trap, and artfully covered it with water-soaked leaves from the bottom of the Smiling Pool so that it could not be seen.
 
“I’d like to see anything go in or out of that hole without getting caught,” said he, with an air of being with himself and his own smartness.
 
So he went on until he had set all his traps, and all the time he was very happy. Spring had come, and it is everybody’s right to be happy in the spring. He heard the notes of the first birds who had come on the lagging heels of winter from the warm southland, and they made him want to sing, himself. Everything about him proclaimed new life and the joy of living. He could feel it in the very air. It was good to be alive.
 
After the last trap had been put in place, he sat down on an old log to rest for a few minutes and enjoy the scene. The Smiling Pool was as smooth as polished glass. Presently, as Tommy sat there without moving, two little silver lines, which met and formed a V, started on the farther side of the Smiling Pool and came straight toward him. Tommy knew what those silver lines were. They were the wake made by a swimming muskrat.
 
“My! I wish I’d brought my gun!” thought Tommy. “It’s queer how a fellow always sees things when he hasn’t a gun, and never sees them when he has.”
 
He could perceive the little brown head very plainly now, and, as it drew nearer, he could distinguish the outline of the body just under the surface, and back of that the queer, rubbery, tail set edge-wise in the water and moving rapidly from side to side.
 
“It’s a regular propeller,” thought Tommy, “and he certainly knows how[66] to use it. It sculls him right along. If he should lose that, he sure would be up against it!”
 
Tommy moved ever so little, so as to get a better view. Instantly there was a sharp slap of the tail on the water, a , and only a to show that a second before there had been a swimmer there. Two other slaps and sounded from distant parts of the Smiling Pool and Tommy knew that he would see no more muskrats unless he sat very still for a long time. Slowly he got to his feet, stretched, and then started for home. All the way across the Green Meadows he kept thinking of that little glimpse of muskrat life he had had, and for the first time in his life he began to think that there might be something more interesting about a[67] muskrat than his fur coat. Always before, he had thought of a muskrat as simply a rat, a big, overgrown cousin of the pests that stole the grain in the hen-house, and against whom every man’s hand is turned, as it should be.
 
But somehow that little glimpse of Jerry Muskrat at home had a new interest. It struck him quite suddenly that it was a very wonderful thing that an animal breathing air, just as he did himself, could be so at home in the water and disappear so suddenly and completely.
 
“It must be fine to be able to swim like that!” thought Tommy as he sat down on the wishing-stone, and looked back across the Green Meadows to the Smiling Pool. “I wonder what he does down there under water. Now I think[68] of it, I don’t know much about him except that he is the only rat with a fur that is good for anything. If it wasn’t for that fur coat of his, I don’t suppose anybody would bother him. What a snap he would have then! I guess he has no end of fun in the summer, with nothing to worry about and plenty to eat, and always cool and comfortable no matter what the weather!
 
“What gets me is how he spends the winter when everything is frozen. He must be under the ice for weeks. I wonder if he sleeps the way the woodchuck does. I suppose I can find out just by wishing, seeing that I’m sitting right here on the old wishing-stone. It would be a funny thing to do to wish myself into a rat. It doesn’t seem as if there could be anything very interesting about[69] the life of anything so stupid-looking as a muskrat, and yet I’ve thought the same thing about some other creatures and found I was wrong.”
 
He gazed dreamily down toward the Smiling Pool, and, the longer he looked, the more he wondered what it would be like to live there. At last, almost without knowing it, he said the magic words.
 
“I—I wish I were a muskrat!” he murmured.
 
Tommy was in the Smiling Pool. He was little and fur-coated, with a funny little flattened tail. And he really had two coats, the outer of long hairs, a sort of water-proof, while the under coat was soft and fine and meant to keep him warm. And, though he was swimming with only his head out of water, he wasn’t wet at all.
 
It was a beautiful summer evening, just at the hour of , and the Smiling Pool was very beautiful, the most beautiful place that ever was. At least it seemed so to Tommy. In the bulrushes a few little feathered folks were still twittering sleepily. Over on his big green lily-pad Grandfather Frog was leading the frog chorus in a great deep voice. From various places in the Smiling Pool came sharp little and faint splashes. It was playtime for little muskrats and visiting time for big muskrats.
 
An odor of filled the air and was very pleasant to Tommy as he and sniffed. He was playing hide-and-seek and tag with other little muskrats of his own age, and not one of them had a care in all the world. Far away,[71] Hooty the was sending his fierce hunting call, but no one in the Smiling Pool took the least notice of it. By and by it ceased.
 
Tommy was chasing one of his playmates in and out among the bulrushes. Twice they had been warned by a wise old muskrat not to go beyond the line of bulrushes into the open water. But little folks are forgetful, especially when playing. Tommy’s little playmate forgot. In the excitement of getting away from Tommy he swam out where the first little star was reflected in the Smiling Pool. A shadow passed over Tommy and hardly had it passed when there was a sharp slap of something striking the water.
 
Tommy knew what it was. He knew that it was the tail of some old[72] muskrat who had discovered danger, and that it meant “dive at once.” Tommy dived. He didn’t wait to learn what the danger was, but filled his little lungs with air, plunged under water and swam as far as he could. When he just had to come up for more air, he put only his nose out and this in the darkest place he knew of among the rushes.
 
There he remained still. Down inside, his heart was with fear of he knew not what. There wasn’t a sound to be heard around the Smiling Pool. It was as still as if there was no living thing there. After what seemed like a long, long time, the deep voice of Grandfather Frog boomed out, and then the of the old muskrat who had given the alarm told all within hearing that all was safe again. At once, all fear left Tommy and he swam to find his playmates.
 
“What was it?” he asked one of them.
 
“Hooty, the Owl,” was the reply. “Didn’t you see him?”
 
“I saw a shadow,” replied Tommy.
 
“That was Hooty. I wonder if he caught anybody,” returned the other.
 
Tommy didn’t say anything, but he thought of the playmate who forgot and swam out beyond the bulrushes, and, when he had hunted and hunted and couldn’t find him, he knew that Hooty had not visited the Smiling Pool for nothing.
 
So Tommy learned the great lesson of never being careless and forgetting. Later that same night, as he sat on a little muddy platform on the edge of the[74] water eating a delicious tender young lily-root, there came that same warning slap of a tail on the water. Tommy didn’t wait for even one more , but plunged into the deepest water and hid as before. This time when the signal that all was well was given he learned that some one with sharper ears than his had heard the footsteps of a fox on the shore and had given the warning just in the nick of time.
 
Four things Tommy learned that night. First, that, safe and beautiful as it seems, the Smiling Pool is not free from dangers for little muskrats; second, that forgetfulness means a short life; third, that to dive at the instant a danger-signal is sounded and inquire later what the danger was is the only sure way of being safe; and fourth, that it is the duty of every muskrat who detects danger to warn every other muskrat.
 
Though he didn’t realize it then, this last was the most important lesson of all. It was the great lesson that hum............