very curious,” muttered Buster, “very curious indeed. It looks as if my fishing is spoiled for to-day. I don’t understand it at all. It’s lucky I caught what I did. It looks as if somebody is trying to—ha!” A sudden thought had popped into his head. Then he began to chuckle and finally to laugh. “I do believe that scamp Joe Otter is trying to get even with me for eating that fat trout!”
And then, because Buster Bear always enjoys a good joke even when it is on himself, he laughed until he had to hold his sides, which is a whole lot better than going off in a rage as Little Joe Otter had done. “You’re pretty smart, Mr. Otter! You’re pretty smart, but there are other people who are smart too,” said Buster Bear, and still chuckling, he went off to think up a plan to get the best of Little Joe Otter.
IV. Little Joe Otter Supplies Buster Bear With a Breakfast
Getting even just for spite
Doesn’t always pay.
Fact is, it is very apt
To work the other way.
That is just how it came about that Little Joe Otter furnished Buster Bear with the best breakfast he had had for a long time. He didn’t mean to do it. Oh, my, no! The truth is, he thought all the time that he was preventing Buster Bear from getting a breakfast. You see he wasn’t well enough acquainted with Buster to know that Buster is quite as smart as he is, and perhaps a little bit smarter. Spite and selfishness were at the bottom of it. You see Little Joe and Billy Mink had had all the fishing in the Laughing Brook to themselves so long that they thought no one else had any right to fish there. To be sure Bobby Coon caught a few little fish there, but they didn’t mind Bobby. Farmer Brown’s boy fished there too, sometimes, and this always made Little Joe and Billy Mink very angry, but they were so afraid of him that they didn’t dare do anything about it. But when they discovered that Buster Bear was a fisherman, they made up their minds that something had got to be done. At least, Little Joe did.
“He’ll try it again to-morrow morning,” said Little Joe. “I’ll keep watch, and as soon as I see him coming, I’ll drive out all the fish, just as I did to-day. I guess that’ll teach him to let our fish alone.”
So the next morning Little Joe hid before daylight close by the little pool where Buster Bear had given him such a fright. Sure enough, just as the Jolly Sunbeams began to creep through the Green Forest, he saw Buster Bear coming straight over to the little pool. Little Joe slipped into the water and chased all the fish out of the little pool, and stirred up the mud on the bottom so that the water was so muddy that the bottom couldn’t be seen at all. Then he hurried down to the next little pool and did the same thing.
Now Buster Bear is very smart. You know he had guessed the day before who had spoiled his fishing. So this morning he only went far enough to make sure that if Little Joe were watching for him, as he was sure he would be, he would see him coming. Then, instead of keeping on to the little pool, he hurried to a place way down the Laughing Brook, where the water was very shallow, hardly over his feet, and there he sat chuckling to himself. Things happened just as he had expected. The frightened fish Little Joe chased out of the little pools up above swam down the Laughing Brook, because, you know, Little Joe was behind them, and there was nowhere else for them to go. When they came to the place where Buster was waiting, all he had to do was to scoop them out on to the bank. It was great fun. It didn’t take Buster long to catch all the fish he could eat. Then he saved a nice fat trout and waited.
By and by along came Little Joe Otter, chuckling to think how he had spoiled Buster Bear’s fishing. He was so intent on looking behind him to see if Buster was coming that he didn’t see Buster waiting there until he spoke.
“I’m much obliged for the fine breakfast you have given me,” said Buster in his deepest, most grumbly-rumbly voice. “I’ve saved a fat trout for you to make up for the one I ate yesterday. I hope we’ll go fishing together often.”
Then he went off laughing fit to kill himself. Little Joe couldn’t find a word to say. He was so surprised and angry that he went off by himself and sulked. And Billy Mink, who had been watching, ate the fat trout.
V. Grandfather Frog’s Common-Sense
There is nothing quite like common sense to smooth out troubles. People who have plenty of just plain common sense are often thought to be very wise. Their neighbors look up to them and are forever running to them for advice, and they are very much respected. That is the way with Grandfather Frog. He is very old and very wise. Anyway, that is what his neighbors think. The truth is, he simply has a lot of common sense, which after all is the very best kind of wisdom.
Now when Little Joe Otter found that Buster Bear had been too smart for him and that instead of spoiling Buster’s fishing in the Laughing Brook he had really made it easier for Buster to catch all the fish he wanted, Little Joe went off down to the Smiling Pool in a great rage.
Billy Mink stopped long enough to eat the fat fish Buster had left on the bank and then he too went down to the Smiling Pool.
When Little Joe Otter and Billy Mink reached the Smiling Pool, they climbed up on the Big Rock, and there Little Joe sulked and sulked, until finally Grandfather Frog asked what the matter was. Little Joe wouldn’t tell, but Billy Mink told the whole story. When he told how Buster had been too smart for Little Joe, it tickled him so that Billy had to laugh in spite of himself. So did Grandfather Frog. So did Jerry Muskrat, who had been listening. Of course this made Little Joe angrier than ever. He said a lot of unkind things about Buster Bear and about Billy Mink and Grandfather Frog and Jerry Muskrat, because they had laughed at the smartness of Buster.
“He’s nothing but a great big bully and thief!” declared Little Joe.
“Chug-a-rum! He may be a bully, because great big people are very apt to be bullies, and though I haven’t seen him, I guess Buster Bear is big enough from all I have heard, but I don’t see how he is a thief,” said Grandfather Frog.
“Didn’t he catch my fish and eat them?” snapped Little Joe. “Doesn’t that make him a thief?”
“They were no more your fish than mine,” protested Billy Mink.
“Well, our fish, then! He stole our fish, if you like that any better. That makes him just as much a thief, doesn’t it?” growled Little Joe.
Grandfather Frog looked up at jolly, round, bright Mr. Sun and slowly winked one of his great, goggly eyes. “There comes a foolish green fly,” said he. “Who does he belong to?”
“Nobody!” snapped Little Joe. “What have foolish green flies got to do with my—I mean our fish?”
“Nothing, nothing at all,” replied Grandfather Frog mildly. “I was just hoping that he would come near enough for me to snap him up; then he would belong to me. As long as he doesn’t, he doesn’t belong to any one. I suppose that if Buster Bear should happen along and catch him, he would be stealing from me, according to Little Joe.”
“YOU TAKE MY ADVICE, LITTLE JOE OTTER,” CONTINUED GRANDFATHER FROG.
“Of course not! What a silly idea! You’re getting foolish in your old age,” retorted Little Joe.
“Can
