CHAPTER 26 THE FOOLISH YOUNG OTTER

 Youth too often scorns advice

 

And in the end must pay the price.

 

              Little Joe Otter¹.

 

Little Joe Otter took the two young Otters² over to the log where he had found the trap and showed it to them. It looked so harmless that it was difficult for the young Otters to believe that it was such a terrible thing as their father said it was. Then he took them over to the foot of the slippery slide, and while they swam about at a safe distance he looked carefully until he found a trap right at the bottom of the slippery slide. He showed it to them.

 

“Now you see why I said you mustn’t go down the slippery slide even once,” said he. “I didn’t know that this trap was here, but I suspected it. I suspect that there are traps in the other places I have warned you to keep away from. If you want to live long and be happy, don’t once forget the warnings your mother and I have given you.”

 

The young Otters promised they wouldn’t forget, and then the whole family went fishing. Of course, they didn’t go fishing together. They separated, each one fishing in a different place. All the time she was looking for a trout³, the smallest Otter kept thinking about those traps. She made up her mind that nothing would tempt⁴ her to be heedless of the warnings she had been given. You see, she had not forgotten the lesson she had learned when Yowler the Bobcat had caught her because of her heedless wilfulness⁵.

 

But her brother had had no such lesson, and as he hunted for trout he smiled to himself at what he thought were the foolish fears of his parents. “Father and mother are just trying to scare us,” said he. “I don’t believe there is anything to be afraid of as long as that dreadful two-legged creature isn’t about. Those traps look perfectly⁶ harmless to me. I’m not afraid of them. I guess if I use my eyes and my nose I can find them without getting into one of them. I wonder where all the fish have gone to. My, I’m hungry! I believe I’ll go farther up the brook⁷. There is some swift, open water up there and it hasn’t been fished much.”

 

So the young Otter swam to the upper end of the open water where he then was, climbed out on the ice and traveled over this until he came to another stretch of open water. He swam along close to the bank on one side and presently came to a sort of little pen of sticks. He didn’t remember having seen it before, and he looked at it suspiciously. He swam around it at a safe distance, and then he smelled fish. It didn’t take him long to discover that inside of that little pen, at the back, was a fat trout. That trout wasn’t alive. It seemed to be held by a stick at the back of that little pen.

 

The young Otter remembered the warning not to touch a dead fish. But he was hungry, very hungry, and here was a dinner he wouldn’t have to take the trouble to catch. He swam back and forth⁸ in front of that little pen of sticks and examined them carefully. He went close to them and smelled of them. They seemed nothing but harmless sticks. His mouth began to water at the smell of the fish.

 

“There isn’t a particle of danger,” said the foolish young Otter. “There wouldn’t be a trap way up here, anyway. I want that fish and I’m going to have it.”

1 otter   

n.水獭

参考例句：

• The economists say the competition otter to the brink of extinction.经济学家们说，竞争把海獭推到了灭绝的边缘。
• She collared my black wool coat with otter pelts.她把我的黑呢上衣镶上了水獭领。

2 otters   

n.（水）獭( otter的名词复数 )；獭皮

参考例句：

• An attempt is being made to entice otters back to the river. 人们正试图把水獭引诱回河里去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Otters are believed to have been on Earth for 90 million years. 水獭被认为存活在地球上已经9千多万年。 来自互联网

3 trout   

n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属)

参考例句：

• Thousands of young salmon and trout have been killed by the pollution.成千上万的鲑鱼和鳟鱼的鱼苗因污染而死亡。
• We hooked a trout and had it for breakfast.我们钓了一条鳟鱼，早饭时吃了。

4 tempt   

vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣

参考例句：

• Nothing could tempt him to such a course of action.什么都不能诱使他去那样做。
• The fact that she had become wealthy did not tempt her to alter her frugal way of life.她有钱了，可这丝毫没能让她改变节俭的生活习惯。

5 wilfulness   

任性；倔强

参考例句：

• I refuse to stand by and see the company allowed to run aground because of one woman's wilfulness. 我不会袖手旁观，眼看公司因为一个女人的一意孤行而触礁。 来自柯林斯例句

6 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

7 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

8 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。