48 FOUE-FOOTEJJ AMERICANS 



a single spoke were missing, so much does the strength 

 of the whole depend on even the least part. We may 

 think that this animal or that is of no use, until we 

 find by experience that it hlled its place as a small but 

 important spoke in this life-wheel." 



'' But, father," said Olive, ''it is surely necessary for 

 us to kill Rats and Mice and other nuisance animals?". 



'* Certainly, we must kill them now because the 

 balance wheel has been so disturbed that these animals 

 have multiplied out of their due proportion and we have 

 made ourselves responsible for their increase. This is 

 a penalty man has to pay in many ways for eating of 

 the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He lias to labor to 

 accomplish many things that Heart of Nature intended 

 doing for him." 



" Then maybe if people hadn't shot so many Owls 

 and good Cannibal Birds, it Avould have helped keep 

 down the nuisance animals," ventured Dodo. " Oli, 

 uncle, what are those funny little haystacks down in 

 the Avater in the marsh meadow?" 



"Muskrat huts. Stop a minute, Olive, and let us 

 look at them," said the Do(;tor, shading his eyes with 

 his hands. " The animals avIio make their homes in 

 those haystacks, as Dodo calls them, are very curious 

 as well as l)otli mischievous and useful. They look 

 like something between the Woodchuck the dogs 

 brought in this morning and a great Rat. They are 

 a little under a foot long, and they can swim as fast 

 as a Duck. Their front toes have long claws for 

 scratching, and their back toes Avebs for SAvimming. 

 They live in tlie banks of rivers and ponds in summer, 

 and retire into these huts, made of rushes and old Aveeds, 



