Page:Little Joe Otter.djvu/44

 safety is the first and most important lesson to be learned.

Then one morning he saw Mrs. Joe out with the two babies, and they were having a grand frolic. Mrs. Joe would get hold of one end of a stick and the two little Otters would get hold of the other end of the stick and try to pull it away from her. In this way they were learning how to grow strong and to take care of themselves.

Then Mrs. Joe took them a little way into the woods. It just happened that Reddy Fox had been along that way the night before. She showed them his tracks and made them smell of them, and when she did this she growled, and