You first will have to satisfy.

 

           Little Joe Otter¹.

 

Peter Rabbit sat at the top of the steep bank of the Laughing Brook² in the Green Forest, as puzzled a Rabbit as ever lived. The queer trail he had followed ended in this long furrow³ straight down the steep bank to the water. Peter hadn’t the least idea who had made that queer trail. So he sat there, staring all about rather foolishly, and now and then scratching a long ear with a long hind⁴ foot.

 

“Hello, Peter Rabbit! Isn’t this great weather? Don’t you just love it? I do,” said a voice.

 

Peter stared all around, everywhere but in the right direction. Finally he just happened to look down in the black, cold water of the Laughing Brook. There in the very middle of it he saw a brown head with a pair of bright eyes full of mischief⁵ looking up at him.

 

“Little Joe Otter!” cried Peter. “Goodness, how you startled me! I couldn’t tell where that voice came from. Yes, this is fine weather. I like it too. But I hope it won’t get any colder.”

 

“I don’t care how cold it gets,” declared Little Joe Otter. “By the way, what brings you over here to the Laughing Brook?”

 

That reminded Peter of the queer trail that had so puzzled him. “Some one, I haven’t the least idea who, has been traveling about in the Green Forest, and has left the queerest trail I’ve ever seen,” said he. “In parts of it there are no footprints at all; there is just a long furrow in the snow. Here is one of those furrows⁶ right down this bank.”

 

Little Joe Otter’s bright eyes twinkled. “That is queer,” said he. “Now who under the sun do you suppose could have made it?”

 

“That’s what I want to know,” declared Peter. “But I guess I’ll have to keep on wanting, for I don’t see that trail coming out of the water anywhere.”

分享到：