“Perfectly,” spoke up Jerry Muskrat, who had been listening from the top of the Big Rock, where he was lunching on a clam, “unless you are not smart enough to keep out of the clutches of Reddy Fox or Old Man Coyote or Hooty the Owl or Redtail the Hawk.”
“I'm not afraid of THEM,” declared Mrs. Quack. “It's those two-legged creatures with terrible guns I'm afraid of,” and she began to swim about more uneasily than ever.
Jerry Muskrat thinks there is no place in the world like the Smiling Pool. So, for the matter of that, does Grandfather Frog and also Spotty the Turtle. You see, they have spent their lives there and know little about the rest of the Great World. When Mrs. Quack explained that all she feared was that a two-legged creature with a terrible gun might find her there, Jerry Muskrat hastened to tell her that she had nothing to worry about on that account.
“No one hunts here now that Farmer Brown's boy has put away his terrible gun,” explained Jerry. “There was a time when he used to hunt here and set traps, which are worse than terrible guns, but that was long ago, before he knew any better.”
“Who is Farmer Brown's boy?” demanded Mrs. Quack, looking more anxious than ever. “Is he one of those two-legged creatures?”
“Yes,” said Peter Rabbit, who had been listening with all his ears, “but he is the best friend we Quaddies have got. He is such a good friend that he ought to be a Quaddy himself. Why, this last winter he fed some of us when food was scarce, and he saved Mrs. Grouse when she was caught in a snare, which you know is a kind of trap. He won't let any harm come to you here, Mrs. Quack.”
“I wouldn't trust him, not for one single little minute,” declared Mrs. Quack. “I wouldn't trust one of those two-legged creatures, not ONE. You say he fed some of you last winter, but that doesn't mean anything good. Do you know what I've known these two-legged creatures to do?”
“What?” demanded Peter and Jerry together.
“I've known them to scatter food where we Ducks would be sure to find it and to take the greatest care that nothing should frighten us while we were eating. And then, after we had got in the habit of feeding in that particular place and had grown to feel perfectly safe there, they have hidden close by until a lot of us were feeding together and then fired their terrible guns and killed a lot of my friends and dreadfully hurt a lot more. I wouldn't trust one of them, not ONE!”