see it clearly
Jerry Muskrat Fights For His Castle
by Thornton W. Burgess
Jerry Muskrat had not been near his house in the Smiling Pool for a whole week. In face, he had not been there since that never-to-be-forgotten morning when he had found that a stranger, a big, fierce Mink, had been there while he was out. He thought about his house a great deal. Indeed, he didn't think of much of anything else as he lay snugly curled up in his castle under the roots of the Big Hickory Tree on the bank of the Smiling Pool, his secret castle of which nobody knew.
It was very snug and comfortable, was Jerry Muskrat's secret castle, and Jerry felt very safe there. But it wasn't quite so nice as that dear house he had worked so hard to build and of which he had been so proud. Sometimes, Jerry, who had grown very big and strong, felt just like going out and fighting that fierce stranger, who had driven him from his house, but whenever he felt this way a little still voice inside him would repeat an old saying of Grandfather Frog's:
"If you go hunting trouble
You'll find trouble right at hand;
It's folks who hunt for trouble
Who bring trouble to the land."
And right down in his heart Jerry knew that big and strong and brave as he felt, the stranger was even bigger and very much quicker and just as brave. So then Jerry would think of another saying of Grandfather Frog's:
"When you knew trouble's hanging 'round
Just you keep out of sight,
And then if trouble finds you out
Just show how you can fight."
So Jerry Muskrat would sigh and snuggle down in his bed and try not to think about his house in the Smiling Pool. So he started down the long, secret tunnel from his castle tot he middle of the Smiling Pool. Half-way there he heard a noise, a very little noise somewhere in front of him. Jerry stopped and listened as hard as ever he could. There is was again! Someone had found his secret tunnel and was creeping along as if not quite sure of where it might lead.
Jerry didn't wait to hear any more or to see who his visitor might be. No, Sir, Jerry didn't wait! He just hurried back to his castle and made ready to fight right in his doorway. Did Jerry Muskrat feel afraid? Perhaps he would have if he hadn't felt so angry that anyone should dare to come stealing through his secret tunnel. He was too angry to feel afraid.
Jerry didn't have long to wait. He had hardly made himself ready when there in the tunnel right in front of him appeared a big, strange Mink. His little eyes were red with the desire to kill and his lips were drawn back from his white teeth. But Jerry Muskrat's lips were drawn back, too, and those great long front teeth of his, with which he gnaws, looked so dangerous that the stranger paused. Then he made a spring for Jerry's throat. But Jerry was too quick for him and he had a chance to feel how sharp those long teeth of Jerry's are. There wasn't much room in that tunnel and Jerry so blocked up the doorway to the castle that the stranger had no chance to get in, so that all that the stranger could do was to keep trying to spring at Jerry's throat, and every time he did he felt Jerry's sharp teeth.
Now, if he could have gotten inside where there was room to twist and dodge, this might have been a different story. But there in the tunnel the stranger could do little. But Jerry was quite at home there, and little by little he drove the stranger back and back, clear to the entrance of the tunnel where the stranger turned tail and swam off towards the Laughing Brook, the worst whipped Mink who ever crossed the Smiling Pool.
"And then if trouble finds you out
Just show how you can fight."