DO YOU find it so, son?" laughed Mother. "Then why don't you take your books out of doors?"

"O may I, Mother?" eagerly asked the little boy. "Of course you may," said his mother, "but you are on your honor, mind! Your lessons must be ready for Father this evening; but if it will be easier to study outside, why not?"

Buddy was delighted. He loved nothing so well as being out of doors, so he wasted no time about getting there. Old Dog Sandy was asleep on the porch. "I guess I won't take him," said Buddy. "He is sure to find some Little Neighbor to bark at, and I've got to study."

Daddy had given Buddy his choice. He could go back to town to school, or he could study and keep up with his grade in the country for two months. And Buddy had voted for the country, so Daddy was his teacher, and he was a very strict one. Very strict!

"I'll go down to the brook," said Buddy. "I know the very place." It was a lovely afternoon. The big yellow pumpkins looked like gold polka-dots in the sun among the shocks of corn. "What a fine place for Cinderella to get a new coach," said Buddy.

At the brook Buddy came to the place where he had once tried to catch Spotty the trout. The same turtle sentinels were asleep on the log, sunning themselves, before they went into their mud beds for the winter. As Buddy came along, splash! went the tiniest turtle into the water. Buddy laughed, "Never mind, Little Neighbor," he said, "I'm not fishing today. I'm going farther down stream."

The place Buddy had in mind for a place to study in was where the brook widened out, getting ready to join the river. A big old tree had fallen there. It reached away out into the swampy land on the farther side.

It made a perfectly splendid place for a little boy to lie and study. Buddy noticed some queer, humpy places across the brook in the swampy land. He wondered what could have made them. But the lessons were hard, so he forgot about everything else until he could say them all backwards. By that time the shadows were getting longer. Buddy was just going to start home, when Splash! something went into the brook. "My!" said Buddy. "That must have been a bear!" Then there was a second splash, and surely there was something swimming across the brook. And then all at once it sank right out of sight. He lay very still, wondering about it. Where could it have gone to? He watched and watched, but he was very sure that it did not come to the surface of the water again. And then all at once there came the patter of little feet along the old log where he lay, and a Little Neighbor almost ran over him, but, seeing him, stopped short and tried to look as though he were not there.

"Don't be afraid, Little Neighbor," said Buddy. "Who's afraid?" asked the Little Neighbor, "I'm not! But what are you doing on our bridge?"

"Is it your bridge?" asked Buddy. "Well, we call it that," said the Little Neighbor. "It is such a splendid place to dive from, when one is carrying something. It's a short-cut home, you see. I've got some corn for supper, and I must hurry. My father and mother just went in. Didn't you see them?"

"Where is your house?" asked Buddy. "Why, that's our house, across there," said the Little Neighbor, pointing to the queer humpy looking thing in the swampy land.

"How do you get into it?" asked Buddy. "And what's your name,—if you don't mind telling me."

"We swim, of course," said the Little Neighbor, "and I am one of the Musquash children. Some folks call us Muskrats, but we don't like that name. We like the Indian name better."

"I saw your father and mother going home," said Buddy, "but they just sank down in the water, and didn't come up. I'd be worried about them if I were in your place."

The Musquash child just laughed. "You don't suppose we go away and leave our front door open so any one can go in, do you?" he said.

"We make a tunnel that leads up to our house, under the water of the brook, and nobody can find it except ourselves. Much better than locking the door."

"What makes you so afraid of people?" asked Buddy. "I guess you would be afraid," said the Musquash child, "if people wanted your skin to make coats of. Traps all about, and spies and enemies, until we never know what is going to happen. But there is Mother calling me. We haven't had supper yet. Goodbye," he called and with a wonderfully big splash for so small a child he swam away.

Buddy watched him out of sight. Then he too went home to supper.

After his lessons were over for the night, Buddy asked, "Daddy, what is a Musquash's skin good for? And why do people hunt them?"

"It's good for a beautiful coat," said Cousin Betty who was visiting there, "if you have money enough. I haven't!"

"Glad you haven't, Cousin Betty," said Buddy, "and I hope that no one ever catches my Little Neighbor, the Musquash child, to make a coat from his skin."