is very
disrespectful to Grandfather Frog.

"Chugarum!" replied Grandfather Frog. "I'm pretty old, but I'm not too
old to learn as some folks seem to be," and he looked very hard at Billy
Mink. "Did I say that that tree trunk was dragged here?"

"No," replied Billy Mink, "but if it wasn't dragged here, how did it get
here? You are so smart, Grandfather Frog, tell me that!"

Grandfather Frog blinked his great goggly eyes at Billy Mink as he said,
just as if he was very, very sorry for Billy, "Your eyes are very bright
and very sharp, Billy Mink, and it is a great pity that you have never
learned how to use them. That tree wasn't dragged here; it was cut so
that it fell right where it lies." As he spoke, Grandfather Frog pointed
to the stump of the tree, and Billy Mink saw that he was right.

But Billy Mink is like a great many other people; he dearly loves to
have the last word. Now he suddenly began to laugh.

"Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Billy Mink. "Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha!"

"What is it that is so funny?" snapped Grandfather Frog, for nothing
makes him so angry as to be laughed at.

"Do you mean to say that anybody but Farmer Brown or Farmer Brown's boy
could have cut down such a big tree as that?" asked Billy. "Why, that
would be as hard as to drag the tree here."

"Jerry Muskrat's big cousin from the North could do it, and I believe he
did," replied Grandfather Frog. "Now that we have found the cause of the
trouble in the Laughing Brook and the Smiling Pool, what are we going to
do about it?"

CHAPTER XIX: Jerry Muskrat Has A Busy Day

There was the strange pond in the Green Forest, and there was the dam
of logs and sticks and mud which had made the strange pond, but look
as they would, Billy Mink and Little Joe Otter and Jerry Muskrat and
Grandfather Frog and Spotty the Turtle could see nothing of the one who
had built the dam. It was very queer. The more they thought about it,
the queerer it seemed. They looked this way, and they looked that way.

"There is one thing very sure, and that is that whoever built this dam
had no thought for those who live in the Laughing Brook and the Smiling
Pool," said Grandfather Frog. "They are selfish, just plain, every-day
selfish; that's what they are! Now the Laughing Brook cannot laugh,
and the Smiling Pool cannot smile, while this dam stops the water from
running, and so--" Grandfather Frog stopped and looked around at his
four friends.

"And so what?"