The Muskrats are Building 
a freshet once in the end of February that flooded 
Lupton’s Pond and drove the muskrats of the whole 
pond village to their ridgepoles, to the bushes, and 
to whatever wreckage the waters brought along. 
The best laid schemes 0° muskrats too 
Gang aft a-gley. 
But ganging a-gley is not the interesting thing, not 
the point with my muskrats: it is rather that my 
muskrats, and the mice that Burns ploughed up, the 
birds and the bees, and even the very trees of the 
forest, have foresight. They all look ahead and pro- 
vide against the coming cold. That a mouse, or a 
muskrat, or even a bee, should occasionally prove 
foresight to be vain, only shows that the life of the 
fields is very human. Such foresight, however, oftener 
proves entirely adequate for the winter, dire as some 
of the emergencies are sure to be. 
The north wind doth blow, 
And we shall have snow, 
And what will Robin do then, 
Poor thing ? 
And what will Muskrat do? and Chipmunk? and 
Whitefoot? and little Chickadee? poor things! Never 
fear. Robin has heard the trumpets of the north wind 
5 
