The Wishing-Stone Stories

by Thornton W. Burgess

With all this hard work completed, you would have supposed that Tommy would have been satisfied, wouldn’t you? But he wasn’t. He found that some of his neighbors were building houses of a wholly different kind, and right away he decided that he must have one too. So he chose a place where the water was shallow, and not too far from the place where the water-lilies grew; and there among the bulrushes he once more set to work.

This time he dug out the mud and the roots of the rushes, piling them around him until he was in a sort of little well. From this he dug several tunnels leading to the deep water where he could be sure that the entrance never would be frozen over. The mud and sods he piled up until they came above the water, and then he made a platform of rushes and mud with an opening in the middle down into that well from which his tunnels led. On this platform he built a great mound of rushes, and grass, and even twigs, all wattled together. Some of them he had to bring clear from the other side of the Smiling Pool.

And, as he built that mound, he made a nice large room in the middle, biting off all the ends of sticks and rushes which happened to be in the way. When he had made that room to suit him, he made a comfortable bed there, just as he had in the house in the bank. Then he built the walls very thick, adding rushes and mud and sods all around except on the very top. There he left the roof thinner, with little spaces for the air to get in, for of course he must have fresh air to breathe.

When at last the new house was finished, he was very proud of it. There were two rooms, the upper one with its comfortable bed quite above the water, and the lower one wholly under water, connected with the former by a little doorway. The only way of getting into the house was by one of his tunnels to the lower room. When all was done, an old muskrat looked it over and told him that he had done very well for a young fellow, which made Tommy feel very important.

The weather was growing cool now, so Tommy laid up some supplies in both houses and then spent his spare time calling on his neighbors. By this time he had grown a fine thick coat and didn’t mind at all how cold it grew. In fact he liked the cold weather.

It was about this time that he had a dreadful experience. He climbed out one evening on his favorite log to open and eat a mussel he had found. There was a snap, and something caught him by the tail and pinched dreadfully. He pulled with all his might, but the dreadful thing wouldn’t let go. He turned and bit at it, but it was harder than his teeth and gnaw as he would he could make no impression on it.

A great terror filled his heart and he struggled and pulled, heedless of the pain, until he was too tired to struggle longer. He just had to lie still. After a while, when he had regained his strength, he struggled again. This time he felt his tail give a little. A neighbor swam over to see what all the fuss was about.

“It’s a trap,” said he. “It’s lucky you are not caught by a foot instead of by the tail. If you keep on pulling you may get free. I did once.”

This gave Tommy new hope and he struggled harder than ever. At last he fell headlong into the water. The cruel steel jaws had not been able to keep his tapered tail from slipping between them. He was free, but oh, so frightened!

After that Tommy grew wise. He never went ashore without first examining the place for one of those dreadful traps, and he found more than one. It got so that he gave up all his favorite places and made new ones. Once he found one of his friends caught by a forefoot and he was actually cutting his foot off with his sharp teeth. It was dreadful, but it was the only way of saving his life.