"No," replied Jerry, "the Laughing Brook has stopped laughing, and
the Smiling Pool has stopped smiling, and I think the world is
upside down."



CHAPTER X: Why The World Seemed Upside Down To Jerry Muskrat

Jerry Muskrat sat on the Big Rock in the Smiling Pool, which smiled
no longer, and held his head in both hands, for his head ached. He
had thought and thought and thought, until it seemed to him that his
head would split; and with all his thinking, he didn't understand
things any more now than he had in the beginning. You see, Jerry
Muskrat's little world was topsy-turvy. Yes, Sir, Jerry's world was
upside down! Anyway, it seemed so to him, and he couldn't
understand it at all.

The Smiling Pool, the Laughing Brook, and the Green Meadows are
Jerry Muskrat's little world. Now, as he sat on the Big Rock and
looked about him, the Green Meadows were as lovely as ever. He could
see no change in them. But the Laughing Brook had stopped laughing,
and the Smiling Pool had stopped smiling. The truth is there wasn't
enough of the Laughing Brook left to laugh, and there wasn't enough
of the Smiling Pool left to smile.

It was dreadful! Jerry looked over to his house, of which he had
once been so proud. He had built it with the doorway under water.
He had felt perfectly safe there, because no one excepting Billy
Mink or Little Joe Otter, who can swim under water, could reach him.
Now the Smiling Pool had grown so small that Jerry's house wasn't