He gazed thoughtfully down toward the Smiling Pool. Then suddenly he sprang to his feet and began to run toward it. “It’s too late to take all of ’em up to-night,” he muttered, “but I’ll take what I can, and to-morrow morning I’ll take up the rest. I hope nothing will get caught in ’em. I never knew before how dreadful it must be to be caught in a trap. I’ll never set another trap as long as I live, so there! “Why, Jerry Muskrat is almost as wonderful as Paddy the Beaver, and he doesn’t do anything a bit of harm. I didn’t know he was so interesting. He hasn’t as many troubles as some, but he has enough, I guess, without me adding to them. Say, that’s a great life he leads! If it wasn’t for traps, it wouldn’t be half bad to be a muskrat. Of course it’s better to be a boy, but I can tell you right now I’m going to be a better boy--less thoughtless and cruel. Jerry Muskrat, you haven’t anything more to fear from me, not a thing! I take off my hat to you for a busy little worker, and for having more nerve than any _boy_ I know.” And never again did Tommy set a trap for little wild folk. CHAPTER FOUR TOMMY LEARNS WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE A BEAR Tommy’s thoughts were straying. Somehow they were straying most of the time these days. They had been, ever since that day when he had wished himself into a beaver. He dreamed of the Great Woods where rivers have their beginnings in gurgling brooks, and great lakes reflect moss-gray giants of the forest; where the beavers still ply their many trades unharmed by man, the deer follow paths of their own making, the otters make merry on their slippery-slides, the lynx pass through the dark shadows, themselves but grayer shadows, and bears go fishing, gather berries, and hunt the stored sweets of the bees. In short, the spell of the Great Woods, the wilderness unmarred by the hand of man, was upon Tommy. Eagerly he read all that he could find about the feathered and furred folk who dwell there, and the longing to know more about them and their ways, to learn these things for himself, grew and grew. He wanted to hear things with his own ears and see things with his own eyes. Sometimes he went over to the Green Forest near his home and played that it was the Great Woods and that he was a mighty hunter. Then Happy Jack the Gray Squirrel became a fierce-eyed, tufted-eared, bob-tailed lynx, saucy Chatterer the Red Squirrel became a crafty fisher, the footprints of Reddy Fox grew in size to those of a wolf, Peter Rabbit was transformed into his cousin of the north, Jumper the Hare, and a certain old black stump was Buster Bear.