Just use your eyes and look about.

 

               Little Joe Otter¹.

 

No one had ever heard of a Mrs. Joe Otter, yet if there wasn’t a Mrs. Joe how was it that Grandfather Frog and Peter Rabbit and Jerry Muskrat², all three, had seemed to see two little brown heads where the Laughing Brook³ comes into the Smiling Pool. For a while they talked it over between themselves. Each was sure that he had seen two. It was only for a moment and then there was nothing to be seen. It was all very mysterious.

 

“There must be something the matter with our eyes,” declared Jerry. “Little Joe is such an uneasy fellow that he never would be content to settle down with a home of his own. Besides, wherever would he have found Mrs. Joe, if there is one?”

 

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” said Peter, hopping⁴ up. “I’m going to go right straight up the Laughing Brook and look for his home. If he’s got one, I don’t believe he can hide it from me.” With this off started Peter, lipperty-lipperty-lip.

 

“Good luck to you, Peter. If you find anything come back and tell us,” shouted Jerry Muskrat.

 

Up the Laughing Brook went Peter. Now he had no more idea than the man in the moon what kind of a home Little Joe Otter would be likely to have. He knew that Jerry Muskrat has two kinds of homes—one a hole in a bank, and the other a house in the Smiling Pool. He knew that Paddy the Beaver⁵ builds the same kinds of homes, only better. He knew that Billy Mink⁶ sometimes makes his home in a hollow log and sometimes under an old pile of brush and sometimes in a hole under a stump⁷. Billy is not particular as to where his home is. But Peter didn’t know where to look for Little Joe’s home.

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