Peter. "Didn't we tell you that he would be good to you?"

"Quack, quack, quack! I've seen that kind of kindness too often to
be fooled by it," snapped Mrs. Quack. "He probably saw me leave in
a hurry and put this corn here, hoping that I would come back and
find it and make up my mind to stay here a while. He thinks that
if I do, he'll have a chance to hide near enough to shoot me. I
didn't believe this could be a safe place for me, and now I know
it. I'll stay here to-night, but to-morrow I'll try to find some
other place. Oh, dear, it's dreadful not to have any place at all
to feel safe in." There were tears in her eyes.

Peter thought of the dear Old Briar-patch and how safe he always felt
there, and he felt a great pity for poor Mrs. Quack, who couldn't
feel safe anywhere. And then right away he grew indignant that she
should be so distrustful of Farmer Brown's boy, though if he had
stopped to think, he would have remembered that once he was just
as distrustful.

"I should think," said Peter with a great deal of dignity, "that
you might at least believe what Jerry Muskrat and I, who live here
all the time, tell you. We ought to know Farmer Brown's boy if any
one does, and we tell you that he won't harm a feather of you."

"He won't get the chance!" snapped Mrs. Quack.

Jerry Muskrat sniffed in disgust. "I don't doubt you have suffered
a lot from men with terrible guns," said he, "but you don't suppose
Peter and I have lived as long as we have without learning a little,
do you? I wouldn't trust many of those two-legged creatures myself,