CHAPTER VI Farmer Brown's Boy Grows Curious.

Now it happened that the very day before Paddy the Beaver decided
that his pond was big enough, and so allowed the water to run in
the Laughing Brook once more, Farmer Brown's boy took it into his
head to go fishing in the Smiling Pool. Just as usual he went
whistling down across the Green Meadows. Somehow, when he goes
fishing, he always feels like whistling. Grandfather Frog heard
him coming and dived into the little bit of water remaining in
the Smiling Pool and stirred up the mud at the bottom so that
Farmer Brown's boy shouldn't see him.

Nearer and nearer drew the whistle. Suddenly it stopped right
short off. Farmer Brown's boy had come in sight of the Smiling
Pool or rather, it was what used to be the Smiling Pool. Now
there wasn't any Smiling Pool, for the very little pool left was
too small and sickly looking to smile. There were great banks of
mud, out of which grew the bulrushes. The lily pads were
forlornly stretched out toward the tiny pool of water remaining.
Where the banks were steep and high, the holes that Jerry Muskrat
and Billy Mink knew so well were plain to see. Over at one side
stood Jerry Muskrat's house, wholly out of water.

Somehow, it seemed to Farmer Brown's boy that he must be
dreaming. He never, never had seen anything like this before, not
even in the very driest weather of the hottest part of the
summer. He looked this way and looked that way. The Green Meadows
looked just as usual. The Green Forest looked just as usual. The