Show BEDTIME STORY FOR CHILDREN by THORNTON IV BURGESS JERRY IS FILLED WITH DISTRUST AS JERRY MUSKRAT lay in his bed safe in his house nursing ills his sure sore tail he had time to do a lot of thinking and he did do a lot of thinking he thought of how day after day he had found all those good things to eat at each of his favorite eating places and how there had not been one single thing to make him suspicious in fact there had been everything to take suspicion away he began to understand der stand just what that trapper had tried to do and it seemed to him that nothing could coula possibly have been more unfair he tried to make inake me think he was my friend thought jerry he knew that it if I 1 had the least suspicion that he my friend I 1 would be watching for traps so he pretended that he was my friend and he brought all those nice things to me to eat so that I 1 would trust him I 1 did trust him and he knew it then when he was sure that I 1 suspect him of doing such a thing he set that awful trap for me ill never trust anybody again 1 I 1 never never will its awful to distrust everybody but after this ill just have to so jerry muskrat was filled with distrust he had been so very happy there in the smiling pool for so long that now life seemed hardly worth while there was no happiness in it you see he felt that not only could he no longer trust those who seemed to be his friends but he was suspicious of everything he no longer dared to freely climb out or his favorite places along the bank he was even suspicious 0 of f the big rock the only place where he felt absolutely safe was right inside his own house but of course he stay in his own house all the time because he had to eat of course everybody has to eat then too he had a lot of work yet to do on that house of his to make it ready for winter this meant that he had to travel around considerably to get his food and to get the material for his house but now he never went ashore without first looking with the greatest care for signs of a trap one of the first things he did after he got through nursing his sore tail was to go to each of the places where that trapper had put good things to eat he went there not to get those good things but to find out if there were traps there as there had been on the old log he found a trap at each place after that he did not go near these places billy mink would have found a way to get all those good things to eat without getting into one of the traps but jerry preferred to take no chances he simply kept away from those places those pieces of carrot and apple were a terrible temptation but he contented himself hi m with his regular food and tried to forget that there were such things as carrots and apples and even when he was hunting for his regular food he was all the time watching out for traps he was so filled with distrust that he took no joy in anything 0 T W burgess service |