X. HOW MR. AND MRS. QUACK STARTED NORTH
Peter Rabbit was eager to help Mrs. Quack in her trouble, though he hadn't the least idea how he could help and neither had she. How any one who dislikes water as Peter does could help one who lives on the water all the time was more than either one of them could see. And yet without knowing it, Peter WAS helping Mrs. Quack. He was giving her his sympathy, and sympathy often helps others a great deal more than we even guess. It sometimes is a very good plan to tell your troubles to some one who will listen with sympathy. It was so with Mrs. Quack. She had kept her troubles locked in her own heart so long that it did her good to pour them all out to Peter.
“Mr. Quack and I spent a very comfortable winter way down in the sunny Southland,” said she with a far-away look. “It was very warm and nice down there, and there were a great many other Ducks spending the winter with us. The place where we were was far from the homes of men, and it was only once in a long while that we had to watch out for terrible guns. Of course, we had to have our wits with us all the time, because there are Hawks and Owls and Minks down there just as there are up here, but any Duck who can't keep out of their way deserves to furnish one of them a dinner.
“Then there was another fellow we had to watch out for, a queer fellow whom we never see anywhere but down there. It was never safe to swim too near an old log floating in the water or lying on the bank, because it might suddenly open a great mouth and swallow one of us whole.”
“What's that?” Peter Rabbit leaned forward and stared at Mrs. Quack with his eyes popping right out. “What's that?” he repeated. “How can an old log have a mouth?”
Mrs. Quack just had to smile, Peter was so in earnest and looked so astonished.
“Of course,” said she, “no really truly log has a mouth or is alive, but this queer fellow I was speaking of looks so much like an old log floating in the water unless you look at him very sharply, that many a heedless young Duck has discovered the difference when it was too late. Then, too, he will swim under water and come up underneath and seize you without any warning. He has the biggest mouth I've ever seen, with terrible-looking teeth, and could swallow me whole.”
{Illustration with caption: “Some folks call him Alligator and some just 'Gator."}