Laughing Brook--ha! What was the matter with the Laughing Brook?
He couldn't hear it and that, you know, was very unusual. He
dropped his rod and ran over to the Laughing Brook. There wasn't
any brook. No, sir, there wasn't any brook; just pools of water
with the tiniest of streams trickling between. Big stones over
which he had always seen the water running in the prettiest of
little white falls were bare and dry. In the little pools
frightened minnows were darting about.

Farmer Brown's boy scratched his head in a puzzled way. "I don't
understand it," said he. "I don't understand it at all. Something
must have gone wrong with the springs that supply the water for
the Laughing Brook. They must have failed. Yes, Sir, that is just
what must have happened. But I never heard of such a thing
happening before, and I really don't see how it could happen. He
stared up into the Green Forest just as if he thought he could
see those springs. Of course, he didn't think anything of the
kind. He was just turning it all over in his mind. "I know what
I'll do, I'll go up to those springs this afternoon and find out
what the trouble is," he said out loud. "They are way over almost
on the other side of the Green Forest, and the easiest way to get
there will be to start from home and cut across the Old Pasture
up to the edge of the Mountain behind the Green Forest. If I try
to follow up the Laughing Brook now, it will take too long,
because it winds and twists so. Besides, it is too hard work."

With that, Farmer Brown's boy went back and picked up his rod.
Then he started for home across the Green Meadows, and for once
he wasn't whistling. You see, he was too busy thinking. In fact,
he was so busy thinking that he didn't see Jimmy Skunk until he