Peter? He wouldn't hurt you."

"Huh! I wouldn't trust _any_ Hawk!" snapped Peter.

"Which goes to show how little you know!" retorted Jerry Muskrat.
"Plunger never bothers anybody but the fish, but he surely is a terror
to them. Old Mother Nature knew what she was doing when she made
fishermen out of that family, didn't she?"

"She certainly did, though I've never heard how she came to do it. How
did it happen, Jerry?" Peter was doing some fishing himself. He was
fishing for a story.

Jerry Muskrat grinned. "Think you'll sleep any better if I tell you?"
he inquired.

Peter grinned back and nodded. So Jerry Muskrat told him this story:

"Way back in the days when the world was young, and the
great-great-ever-so-great-grandfathers of all the little people of the
Green Meadows and the Green Forest of today were being started out in
life by Old Mother Nature, they had everything to learn. The Great World
was a new place, and they were new in it. No one knew exactly his place
or what was expected of him, and Old Mother Nature was too busy to be
bothered with questions. She expected each one to work out for himself a
way in which to make himself useful, or at least to take care of
himself, without bothering her. If he couldn't do that, she didn't want
him around at all, and the sooner something happened to him the better.
So the Great World began to be peopled with birds and animals.

"It didn't take them long to learn that it wouldn't be possible for all
to live if they all ate the same kind of food. So some learned to eat
one thing and some another, and all went happily until there came a time
when all food was scarce, and more stomachs were empty than full. You've
heard about that hard time and sad time?"

Peter nodded, and Jerry took a drink of water and then went on with his
tale.

"Of course, that was really a very dreadful time, for it was then that
the strong began to hunt the weak, and fear was born into the world. And
yet I guess it wasn't wholly bad. Nothing is, so far as I can find out.
Anyway, because of that hard time, everybody became a little smarter
than before. You know an empty stomach sharpens wit, and fear puts a
fine edge on it. Now Mr. Osprey, who was one of the biggest of the
cousins of old King Eagle, couldn't get over a feeling of meanness
whenever he hunted those smaller than himself. One day he caught little
Mr. Sparrow when little Mr. Sparrow was so busy that he forgot to watch
out.