“Help Mrs. Quack!” exclaimed Sammy in
surprise. “Where under the sun did you
get acquainted with Mrs. Quack? What’s the
matter with her? She always has looked to me
quite able to help herself.”
“Well, she isn’t. That is, she needs
others to help her just now,” replied Peter,
“and I’ve been most thinking my head off
trying to find a way to help her.” Then
he told Sammy how he had met Mrs. Quack at the Smiling
Pool and how terrible her long journey up from the
sunny Southland had been, and how Mr. Quack had been
shot by a hunter with a terrible gun, and how poor
Mrs. Quack was quite heartbroken, and how she had
gone over to the Big River to look for him but didn’t
dare go near the places where he might be hiding if
he were still alive and hurt so that he couldn’t
fly, and how cruel and terribly unfair were the men
with terrible guns, and all the other things he had
learned from Mrs. Quack.
Sammy listened with his head cocked on one side, and
for once he didn’t interrupt Peter or try to
tease him or make fun of him. In fact, as Peter
looked up at him, he could see that Sammy was very
serious and thoughtful, and that the more he heard
of Mrs. Quack’s story the more thoughtful he
looked. When Peter finished, Sammy flew down
a little nearer to Peter.
“I beg your pardon for saying your head is empty,
Peter,” said he. “Your heart is right,
anyway. Of course, there isn’t anything
you can do to help Mrs. Quack, but as I told you in
the beginning, what you can’t do others can.
Now I don’t say that I can help Mrs. Quack,
but I can try. I believe I’ll do a little
thinking myself.”
So Sammy Jay in his turn went into a brown study,
and Peter watched him anxiously and a little hopefully.
SAMMY JAY’S PLAN TO HELP MRS. QUACK
Sammy Jay sat on the lowest branch of a little tree
in the dear Old Briar-patch just over Peter Rabbit’s
head, thinking as hard as ever he could. Peter
watched him and wondered if Sammy would be able to
think of any plan for helping poor Mrs. Quack.
He hoped so. He himself had thought and thought
until he felt as if his brains were all mixed up and
he couldn’t think any more. So he watched
Sammy and waited and hoped.
Presently Sammy flirted his wings in a way which Peter
knew meant that he had made up his mind. “Did
I understand you to say that Mrs. Quack said that
if Mr. Quack is alive, he probably is hiding among
the rushes along the banks of the Big River?”
he asked.
Peter nodded.
“And that she said that she doesn’t dare
go near the banks because of fear of the terrible
guns?”
Again Peter nodded.
