those who go south are traveling earlier than usual this fall, so I
knew I might find Mr. and Mrs. Quack over here any time now. Is it
true, Mrs. Quack, that we are going to have a long, hard, cold
winter?"

"That is what they say up in the Far North," replied
Mrs. Quack. "And it is true that Jack Frost had started down earlier
than usual. That is how it happens we are here now. But about those
hunters over by the Big River, do you suppose they will come over
here?" There was an anxious note in Mrs. Quack's voice.

"No," replied Blacky promptly. "Farmer Brown's boy won't let
them. I know. I've been watching him and he has been watching those
hunters. As long as you stay here, you will be safe. What a great
world this would be if all those two-legged creatures were like
Farmer Brown's boy."

"Wouldn't it!" cried Peter. Then he added, "I wish they were."

"You don't wish it half as much as I do," declared Mrs. Quack.

"Yet I can remember when he used to hunt with a terrible gun and was
as bad as the worst of them," said Blacky.

"What changed him?" asked Mrs. Quack, looking interested.

"Just getting really acquainted with some of the little people of
the Green Forest and the Green Meadows," replied Blacky. "He found
them ready to meet him more than halfway in friendship and that some
of them really are his best friends."