When Peter Rabbit made a little noise, as he hopped out on the bank where he could look all over the Smiling Pool, the singing stopped. After he had sat perfectly still for a little while, it began again. There was no doubt about it this time; those voices came right out of the water. Johnny Chuck stared at Peter Rabbit, and Peter stared at Johnny Chuck. Nobody was to be seen in the Smiling Pool, and yet there were those voices--oh, so many of them--coming right out of the water. “How can birds stay under water and still sing?” asked Johnny Chuck. “Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha!” Peter Rabbit and Johnny Chuck whirled around, to find Jerry Muskrat peeping up at them from a hole in the bank almost under their feet. {Illustration: “Ho, ho, ho! That's the best joke this spring!” shouted Jerry Muskrat.} “Ho, ho, ho! That's the best joke this spring!” shouted Jerry Muskrat, and laughed until he had to hold his sides. “Birds under water! Ho, ho, ho!” IV. JOHNNY CHUCK FINDS OUT WHO THE SWEET SINGERS ARE Johnny Chuck couldn't keep away from the Smiling Pool. No, Sir, Johnny Chuck couldn't keep away from the Smiling Pool. Ever since he and Peter Rabbit had gone over there looking for the sweet singers, who every night and part of the day told all who would listen how glad they were that Mistress Spring had come to the Green Meadows and the Green Forest, Johnny Chuck had had something on his mind. And this is why he couldn't keep away from the Smiling Pool. You see it was this way: Johnny and Peter had thought that of course the sweet singers were birds. They hadn't dreamed of anything else. So of course they went looking for birds. When they reached the Smiling Pool, the voices came right out of the water. Johnny knew that some birds, like many of the cousins of Mrs. Quack, can stay under water a long time, and so he didn't know but some other birds might. Jerry Muskrat was always watching for Johnny, whenever he came to the Smiling Pool, and his eyes would twinkle as he would gravely say: “Hello, Johnny Chuck! Have you seen the birds sing under water yet?” Johnny would smile good-naturedly and reply: “Not yet, Jerry Muskrat. Won't you point them out to me?” Then Jerry would reply: “Two eyes you have, bright as can be; Perhaps some day you'll learn to see.” Then Johnny Chuck would sit as still as ever he knew how, and watch and watch the Smiling Pool, but not a bird did he see in the water, though the singers were still there. One day a sudden thought popped into his head. Perhaps those singers were not birds at all! Why hadn't he thought of that before? Perhaps it was because he was looking so hard for birds that he hadn't seen anything else. Johnny began to look, not for anything in particular, but to see everything that he could.