it is old mother nature’s rule

for every one to go to school.

           little joe otter.

peter rabbit could not keep away from the green forest. no, sir, he couldn’t. he just couldn’t do it. you see, having discovered those two queer, brown babies under a big tree on the bank of the laughing brook, he just had to go back there every chance he could get to watch them. so, whenever he could, he slipped over there to watch. he kept as still as still could be, and not once did those little brown babies suspect that he was near. every day they came out to play, but at the least sound they would disappear in that snug home, the doorway of which was between the roots of the big tree.

after a little peter discovered that there was a school in the green forest, just as there was a school at johnny chuck’s home in the old orchard, and another where danny meadow mouse had his home on the green meadows. you see, wherever there are babies there has to be a school. this is one of the laws of old mother nature. peter had been quite right when he had guessed that these babies were the children of little joe otter. at first they seemed to do nothing but tumble over each other and play; it was very rough play, the roughest play, that peter ever had seen. he didn’t guess that in that play those two brown babies were learning something, but they were. they were learning how to use their legs and teeth and bodies.

at first peter had seen nothing of little joe otter or mrs. joe, but he noticed that at the least rustle of a leaf the two brown babies disappeared in their home, and by this he knew that they had been taught that great law of all the little wild people, which is that safety is the first and most important lesson to be learned.

then one morning he saw mrs. joe out with the two babies, and they were having a grand frolic. mrs. joe would get hold of one end of a stick and the two little otters would get hold of the other end of the stick and try to pull it away from her. in this way they were learning how to grow strong and to take care of themselves.

then mrs. joe took them a little way into the woods. it just happened that reddy fox had been along that way the night before. she showed them his tracks and made them smell of them, and when she did this she growled, and thus they knew that reddy was an enemy to be watched out for.

later, right in the midst of one of their grand frolics, sammy jay suddenly began to scream. peter knew perfectly well what that scream meant. he knew by the noise that sammy had discovered somebody in the green forest. of course mrs. otter knew, and right away she chased her two brown babies into their home and followed them. thus they learned that a screaming jay is a warning to watch out for danger.

one thing puzzled peter very much. he knew that little joe otter lives in the water most of the time, and that of course mrs. joe does the same thing. “i wonder why those youngsters are not taught to swim,” thought peter. “i should suppose that a swimming lesson would be one of the very first things they would get.”

peter puzzled over this a great deal as one day followed another and still the otter babies never once went near the water. they grew fast, and had the very best times ever were, but always on the land. in fact, peter suspected by the way they acted that they didn’t like the water any better than he did, and you know he doesn’t like it at all. mrs. otter, and sometimes little joe, brought them fish to eat, and sometimes their mother took them on little short hunting trips, but always on the land. it was too much for peter; it seemed to him that those otter children were being brought up altogether wrong.

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