see it clearly
Billy Mink Becomes A Boaster
By Thornton W. Burgess
Billy Mink, Little Joe Otter and Jerry Muskrat sat on the Big Rock in the Smiling Pool. Over on his big lily-pad sat Grandfather Frog. The Merry Little Breezes of Old Mother West Wind was singing to her babies in their cradle in the bulrushes.
Billy Mink was feeling very find, very, very, fine indeed that morning. He had actually beaten Jerry Muskrat in a swimming race. He can't do it very often, but he had done it that morning, and it made him feel very important. Now when people begin to feel important they feeling grows and grows and grows. It was so with Billy Mink. He swelled himself up and began to walk back and forth on top of the Big Rock, and as he walked he began to boast. Yes, Sir, Billy Mink began to boast.
"I can swim like a fish," said Billy Mink.
"Pooh! so can I!" exclaimed Little Joe Otter.
"I can run like the wind!" boasted Billy Mink.
"Peter Rabbit can run faster," said Jerry Muskrat.
"I can follow a track with my nose," continued Billy Mink.
"So can Bowser the Hound," grunted Little Joe Otter.
"I can climb trees like a flash," bragged Billy Mink.
"So can Happy Jack Squirrely," said Jerry Muskrat, sliding into the Smiling Pool in disgust.
"I can do anything that anybody who wears fur and lives on the Green Meadows or in the Green Forest can do," cried Billy Mink and strutted up and down, up and down on top of the Big Rock.
Grandfather Frog had listened and said nothing until Billy Mink had boasted that he could do anything that anybody else could do. Then he rolled his big googly eyes up at jolly, round Mr. Sun and began to sing is a deep voice:
"The Boaster brags when he can do;
He swells his chest; his head swells, too.
Some day he'll burst, and then you'll find
He nothing has but empty mind."
Billy Mink stopped short and glared across at Grandfather Frog. "What's that you are saying," demanded Billy Mink.
"Chugarum! I say you are a foolish boaster," replied Grandfather Frog, "for it is the easiest thing in the world to find somebody who wears fur to do something you can't do."
"Who can?" "I'm not going to tell," replied Grandfather Frog.
"You can't, because you don't know anyone," sneered Billy Mink.
Grandfather Frog suddenly hopped up in the air, and caught a foolish green fly who came too near for his own good.
"I never say what I cannot prove, Billy Mink," said Grandfather Frog in his deepest voice. "I will prove it to you tomorrow night at sundown if you will agree to be here."
Of course, Billy Mink agreed. You see Little Joe Otter was listening, so he felt that he had to agree.