THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING 65 



coining cold. Yet, weather-wise as a muskrat may be, 

 still he cannot know all that may happen ; he can- 

 not be ready for everything. And so, if now and 

 then, he should prove foresight to be vain, he only 

 shows that his plans and our plans, his life and oin; 

 lives, are very much alike. 



Usually, however, the muskrat's plans work out 

 as he would have them. His foresight proves to be 

 equal to all that the winter can bring. On the 

 coldest winter days I shall look out over the bleak 

 white waste to where his house shows, a tiny mound 

 in the snow, and think of him safe and warm inside, 

 as safe and warm as I am, in my house, here on the 

 hilltop. 



Indeed, I think the muskrat will be the warmer ; 

 for my big house here on Mullein Hill is sometimes 

 cold. And the wind ! If only I could drive the winter 

 wind away from the corners of the house! But 

 the house down in the meadow has no corners. It 

 has walls, mud walls, so thick and round that the 

 shrieking wind sweeps past unheard by the dwellers 

 within ; and all unheeded the cold creeps over and 

 over the low thatch, to crawl back and stiffen upon 

 the meadow. 



The doors of this meadow house swing wide open 

 throughout the winter; for they are in the bottom 

 of the house, 'beneath the water, where only the 

 muskrat can enter. Just outside the doors, down 

 under the water and the roof of ice that covers all 



