creatures to do?"

"What?" demanded Peter and Jerry together.

"I've known them to scatter food where we Ducks would be sure to
find it and to take the greatest care that nothing should frighten
us while we were eating. And then, after we had got in the habit
of feeding in that particular place and had grown to feel perfectly
safe there, they have hidden close by until a lot of us were feeding
together and then fired their terrible guns and killed a lot of
my friends and dreadfully hurt a lot more. I wouldn't trust one of
them, not ONE!" "Oh, how dreadful!" cried Peter, looking quite as
shocked as he felt. Then he added eagerly, "But our Farmer Brown's
boy wouldn't do anything like that. You haven't the least thing to
fear from him."

"Perhaps not," said Mrs. Quack, shaking her head doubtfully, "but
I wouldn't trust him. I wouldn't trust him as far off as I could
see him. The Smiling Pool is a very nice place, although it is
dreadfully small, but if Farmer Brown's boy is likely to come over
here, I guess I better look for some other place, though goodness
knows where I will find one where I will feel perfectly safe."

"You are safe right here, if you have sense enough to stay here,"
declared Jerry Muskrat rather testily. "Don't you suppose Peter
and I know what we are talking about?"

"I wish I could believe so," returned Mrs. Quack sadly, "but if
you had been through what I've been through, and suffered what I've
suffered, you wouldn't believe any place safe, and you certainly