up again."

"If it doesn't, what are you going to do?" asked Grandfather Frog.

"I don't know," replied Jerry Muskrat. "Here come Little Joe Otter
and Billy Mink; let's find out what they are going to do."



CHAPTER XI: Five Heads Together

Something had to be done. Jerry Muskrat said so. Grandfather Frog
said so. Billy Mink said so. Little Joe Otter said so. Even Spotty
the Turtle said so. The Laughing Brook couldn't laugh, and the
Smiling Pool couldn't smile. You see, there wasn't water enough in
either of them to laugh or smile, and nobody knew if there ever
would be again. Nobody had ever known anything like it before, and
so nobody knew what to think or do. And yet they all felt that
something must be done.

"What do you think, Billy Mink?" asked Grandfather Frog.

Billy Mink looked down from the top of the Big Rock into the little
pool of water that was all there was left of the Smiling Pool.
He could see a dozen fat trout in it, and he knew that he could
catch them just as easily as not, because there was no place for
them to swim away from him. But somehow he didn't want to catch
them. He knew that they were frightened almost to death already by
the running away of nearly all the water from the Laughing Brook and
the Smiling Pool, and somehow he felt sorry for them.