But somehow that little glimpse of Jerry Muskrat at home had awakened a new interest. It struck him quite suddenly that it was a very wonderful thing that an animal breathing air, just as he did himself, could be so at home in the water and disappear so suddenly and completely.
“It must be fine to be able to swim like that!” thought Tommy as he sat down on the wishing-stone, and looked back across the Green Meadows to the Smiling Pool. “I wonder what he does down there under water. Now I think of it, I don’t know much about him except that he is the only rat with a fur that is good for anything. If it wasn’t for that fur coat of his, I don’t suppose anybody would bother him. What a snap he would have then! I guess he has no end of fun in the summer, with nothing to worry about and plenty to eat, and always cool and comfortable no matter what the weather!
“What gets me is how he spends the winter when everything is frozen. He must be under the ice for weeks. I wonder if he sleeps the way the woodchuck does. I suppose I can find out just by wishing, seeing that I’m sitting right here on the old wishing-stone. It would be a funny thing to do to wish myself into a rat. It doesn’t seem as if there could be anything very interesting about the life of anything so stupid-looking as a muskrat, and yet I’ve thought the same thing about some other creatures and found I was wrong.”
He gazed dreamily down toward the Smiling Pool, and, the longer he looked, the more he wondered what it would be like to live there. At last, almost without knowing it, he said the magic words.
“I—I wish I were a muskrat!” he murmured.
Tommy was in the Smiling Pool. He was little and fur-coated, with a funny little flattened tail. And he really had two coats, the outer of long hairs, a sort of water-proof, while the under coat was soft and fine and meant to keep him warm. And, though he was swimming with only his head out of water, he wasn’t wet at all.
It was a beautiful summer evening, just at the hour of twilight, and the Smiling Pool was very beautiful, the most beautiful place that ever was. At least it seemed so to Tommy. In the bulrushes a few little feathered folks were still twittering sleepily. Over on his big green lily-pad Grandfather Frog was leading the frog chorus in a great deep voice. From various places in the Smiling Pool came sharp little squeaks and faint splashes. [It was playtime for little muskrats] and visiting time for big muskrats.
[IT WAS PLAYTIME FOR THE LITTLE MUSKRATS]
An odor of musk filled the air and was very pleasant to Tommy as he sniffed and sniffed. He was playing hide-and-seek and tag with other little muskrats of his own age, and not one of them had a care in all the world. Far away, Hooty the Owl was sending forth his fierce hunting call, but no one in the Smiling Pool took the least notice of it. By and by it ceased.