So the dam grew and grew, and so did the pond above the dam. Of course, it took a good many days to build so big a dam, and a lot of hard work! Every morning the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows would visit it, and every morning they would find that it had grown a great deal in the night, for that is when Paddy likes best to work. By this time, the Laughing Brook had stopped laughing, and down in the Smiling Pool there was hardly water enough for the minnows to feel safe a minute. Billy Mink had stopped making fun of the dam, and all the little people who live in the Laughing Brook and the Smiling Pool were terribly worried. To be sure Paddy had warned them of what he was going to do, and had promised that just as soon as his pond was big enough, the water would once more run in the Laughing Brook. They tried to believe him, but they couldn't help having just a wee bit of fear that he might not be wholly honest. You see, they didn't know him, for he was a stranger. Jerry Muskrat was the only one who seemed absolutely sure that everything would be all right. Perhaps that was because Paddy is his cousin, and Jerry couldn't help but feel proud of such a big cousin and one who was so smart. So day by day the dam grew, and the pond grew, and then one morning Grandfather Frog, down in what had once been the Smiling Pool, heard a sound that made his heart jump for joy. It was a murmur that kept growing and growing, until at last it was the merry laugh of the Laughing Brook. Then he knew that Paddy had kept his word and water would once more fill the Smiling Pool. VI FARMER BROWN'S BOY GROWS CURIOUS Now it happened that the very day before Paddy the Beaver decided that his pond was big enough, and so allowed the water to run in the Laughing Brook once more, Farmer Brown's boy took it into his head to go fishing in the Smiling Pool. Just as usual he went whistling down across the Green Meadows. Somehow, when he goes fishing, he always feels like whistling. Grandfather Frog heard him coming and dived into the little bit of water remaining in the Smiling Pool and stirred up the mud at the bottom so that Farmer Brown's boy shouldn't see him. Nearer and nearer drew the whistle. Suddenly it stopped right short off. Farmer Brown's boy had come in sight of the Smiling Pool or rather, it was what used to be the Smiling Pool. Now there wasn't any Smiling Pool, for the very little pool left was too small and sickly-looking to smile. There were great banks of mud, out of which grew the bulrushes. The lily-pads were forlornly stretched out towards the tiny pool of water remaining. Where the banks were steep and high, the holes that Jerry Muskrat and Billy Mink knew so well were plain to see. Over at one side stood Jerry Muskrat's house, wholly out of water.