armer Brown or Farmer Brown's boy. But if they
didn't do it, who did? Who could have done it?"

"I don't know," said Grandfather Frog again, in a dreamy sort of voice.

Spotty the Turtle looked at him, and saw that Grandfather Frog's face
wore the far-away look that it always does when he tells a story of
the days when the world was young. "I don't know," he repeated, "but it
looks to me very much like the work of--" Grandfather Frog stopped short
off and turned to Jerry Muskrat. "Jerry Muskrat," said he, so sharply
that Jerry nearly lost his balance in his surprise, "has your big cousin
come down from the North?"

CHAPTER XVIII: Jerry Muskrat's Big Cousin

Fiddle, faddle, feedle, fuddle!
Was there ever such a muddle?
Fuddle, feedle, faddle, fiddle!
Who is there will solve the riddle?

Here was the Laughing Brook laughing no longer. Here was the Smiling
Pool smiling no longer. Here was a brand new pond deep in the Green
Forest. Here was a wall of logs and bushes and mud called a dam, built
by some one whom nobody had seen. And here was Grandfather Frog asking
Jerry Muskrat if his big cousin had come down from the North, when Jerry
didn't even know that he had a big cousin.

"I--I haven't any big cousin," said Jerry, when he had quite recovered
from his surprise at Grandfather Frog's question.

"Chugarum!" exclaimed Grandfather Frog, and the scornful way in which he
said it made Jerry Muskrat feel very small. "Chugarum! Of course you've
got a big cousin in the North. Do you mean to tell me that you don't
know that, Jerry Muskrat?"

Jerry had to admit that it was true that he didn't know anything about
that big cousin. If Grandfather Frog said that he had one, it must be
so, for Grandfather Frog is very old and very wise, and he knows a great
deal. Still, it was very hard for Jerry to believe that he had a big
cousin of whom he had never heard.

"Did--did you ever see him, Grandfather Frog?" Jerry asked.

"No!" snapped Grandfather Frog. "I never did, but I know all about him.
He is a great worker, is this big cousin of yours, and he builds dams
like this one we are sitting on."

"I don't believe it!" cried Billy Mink. "I don't believe any cousin of
Jerry Muskrat's ever built such a dam as this. Why, just look at that
great tree trunk at the bottom! No one but Farmer Brown or Farmer
Brown's boy could ever have dragged that there. You're crazy,
Grandfather Frog, just plain crazy." Billy Mink sometimes