The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver
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Thornton W. Burgess >> The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver
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THE ADVENTURES OF PADDY THE BEAVER
Thornton W. Burgess
1917
CONTENTS:
CHAPTER
I Paddy the Beaver Begins Work.
II Paddy Plans a Pond.
III Paddy Has Many Visitors.
IV Sammy Jay Speaks His Mind.
V Paddy Keeps His Promise.
VI Farmer Brown's Boy Grows Curious.
VII Farmer Brown's Boy Gets Another Surprise.
VIII Peter Rabbit Gets a Ducking.
IX Paddy Plans a House.
X Paddy Starts His House
XI Peter Rabbit and Jerry Muskrat are Puzzled.
XII Jerry Muskrat Learns Something.
XIII The Queer Storehouse.
XIV A Footprint in the Mud.
XV Sammy Jay Makes Paddy a Call.
XVI Old Man Coyote Is Very Crafty.
XVII Old Man Coyote is Disappointed.
XVIII Old Man Coyote Tries Another Plan.
XIX Paddy and Sammy Jay Become Friends.
XX Sammy Jay Offers To Help Paddy.
XXI Paddy and Sammy Jay Work Together.
XXII Paddy Finishes His Harvest.
CHAPTER I Paddy the Beaver Begins Work.
Work, work all the night
While the stars are shining bright;
Work, work all the day;
I have got no time to play.
This little rhyme Paddy the Beaver made up as he toiled at
building the dam which was to make the pond he so much desired
deep in the Green Forest. Of course it wasn't quite true, that
about working all night and all day. Nobody could do that, you
know, and keep it up. Everybody has to rest and sleep. Yes, and
everybody has to play a little to be at their best. So it wasn't
quite true that Paddy worked all day after working all night. But
it was true that Paddy had no time to play. He had too much to
do. He had had his playtime during the long summer, and now he
had to get ready for the long, cold winter.
Now, of all the little workers in the Green Forest, on the Green
Meadows, and in the Smiling Pool, none can compare with Paddy the
Beaver, not even his cousin, Jerry Muskrat. Happy Jack Squirrel
and Striped Chipmunk store up food for the long, cold months when
rough Brother North Wind and Jack Frost rule, and Jerry Muskrat
builds a fine house wherein to keep warm and comfortable, but all
this is as nothing to the work of Paddy the Beaver.
As I said before, Paddy had had a long playtime through the
summer. He had wandered up and down the Laughing Brook. He had
followed it way up to the place where it started. And all the
time he had been studying and studying to make sure that he
wanted to stay in the Green Forest. In the first place, he had to
be sure that there was plenty of the kind of food that he likes.
Then he had to be equally sure that he could make a pond near
where this particular food grew. Last of all, he had to satisfy
himself that if he did make a pond and build a home, he would be
reasonably safe in it. And all these things he had done in his
playtime. Now he was ready to go to work, and when Paddy begins
work, he sticks to it until it is finished. He says that is the
only way to succeed, and you know and I know that he is right.
Now Paddy the Beaver can see at night just as Reddy Fox and Peter
Rabbit and Bobby Coon can, and he likes the night best, because
he feels safest then. But he can see in the daytime too, and when
he feels that he is perfectly safe and no one is watching, he
works then too. Of course, the first thing to do was to build a
dam across the Laughing Brook to make the pond he so much needed.
He chose a low, open place deep in the Green Forest, around the
edge of which grew many young aspen trees, the bark of which is
his favorite food. Through the middle of this open place flowed
the Laughing Brook. At the lower edge was just the place for a
dam. It would not have to be very long, and when it was finished
and the water was stopped in the Laughing Brook, it would just
have to flow over the low, open place and make a pond there.
Paddy's eyes twinkled when he first saw it. It was right then
that he made up his mind to stay in the Green Forest.
So now that he was ready to begin his dam he went up the Laughing
Brook to a place where alders and willows grew, and there he
began work; that work was the cutting of a great number of trees
by means of his big front teeth which were given him for just
this purpose. And as he worked, Paddy was happy, for one can
never be truly happy who does no work.
CHAPTER II Paddy Plans a Pond.
Paddy the Beaver was busy cutting down trees for the dam he had
planned to build. Up in the woods of the North from which he had
come to the Green Forest, he had learned all about tree-cutting
and dam-building and canal-digging and house-building. Paddy's
father and mother had been very wise in the Beaver world, and
Paddy had been quick to learn. So now he knew just what to do and
the best way of doing it. You know, a great many people waste
time and labor doing things the wrong way, so that they have to
be done over again. They forget to be sure they are right, and so
they go ahead until they find they are wrong, and all their work
goes for nothing.
But Paddy the Beaver isn't this kind. Paddy would never have
leaped into the spring with the steep sides without looking, as
Grandfather Frog did. So now he carefully picked out the trees to
cut. He could not afford to waste time cutting down a tree that
wasn't going to be just what he wanted when it was down. When he
was sure that the tree was right, he looked up at the top to find
out whether, when he had cut it, it would fall clear of other
trees. He had learned to do that when he was quite young and
heedless. He remembered just how he had felt when, after working
hard, oh, so hard, to cut a big tree, he had warned all his
friends to get out of the way so that they would not be hurt when
it fell, and then it hadn't fallen at all because the top had
caught in another tree. He was so mortified that he didn't get
over it for a long time.
So now he made sure that a tree was going to fall clear and just
where he wanted it. Then he sat up on his hind legs, and with his
great broad tail for a brace, began to make the chips fly. You
know Paddy has the most wonderful teeth for cutting. They are
long and broad and sharp. He would begin by making a deep bite,
and then another just a little way below. Then he would pry out
the little piece of wood between. When he had cut very deep on
one side so that the tree would fall that way, he would work
around to the other side. Just as soon as the tree began to lean
and he was sure that it was going to fall, he would scamper away
so as to be out of danger. He loved to see those tall trees lean
forward slowly, then faster and faster, till they struck the
ground with a crash.
Just as soon as they were down, he would trim off the branches
until the trees where just long poles. This was easy work, for he
could take off a good-sized branch with one bite. On many he left
their bushy tops. When he had trimmed them to suit him and had
cut them into the right lengths, he would tug and pull them down
to the place where he meant to build his dam.
There he placed the poles side by side, not across the Laughing
Brook like a bridge, but with the big ends pointing up the
Laughing Brook, which was quite broad but shallow right there. To
keep them from floating away, he rolled stones and piled mud on
the bushy ends. Clear across on both sides he laid those poles
until the water began to rise. Then he dragged more poles and
piled them on top of these and wedged short sticks crosswise
between them.
And all the time the Laughing Brook was having harder and harder
work to run. Its merry laugh grew less merry and finally almost
stopped, because, you see, the water could not get through
between all those poles and sticks fast enough. It was just about
that time that the little people of the Smiling Pool decided that
it was time to see just what Paddy was doing, and they started up
the Laughing Brook, leaving only Grandfather Frog and the
tadpoles in the Smiling Pool, which for a little while would
smile no more.
CHAPTER III Paddy Has Many Visitors.
Paddy the Beaver knew perfectly well that he would have visitors
just as soon as he began to build his dam. He expected a lot of
them. You see he knew that none of them ever had seen a Beaver at
work unless perhaps it was Prickly Porky the Porcupine, who also
had come down from the North. So as he worked he kept his ears
open, and he smiled to himself as he heard a little rustle here
and then a little rustle there. He knew just what those little
rustles meant. Each one meant another visitor. Yes, Sir, each
rustle meant another visitor, and yet not one had shown himself.
Paddy chuckled. "Seems to me that you are dreadfully afraid to
show yourselves," said he in a loud voice, just as if he were
talking to nobody in particular. Everything was still. There
wasn't so much as a rustle after Paddy spoke. He chuckled again.
He could just feel ever so many eyes watching him, though he
didn't see a single pair. And he knew that the reason his
visitors were hiding so carefully was because they were afraid of
him. You see, Paddy was much bigger than most of the little
meadow and forest people, and they didn't know what kind of a
temper he might have. It is always safest to be very distrustful
of strangers. That is one of the very first things taught all
little meadow and forest children.
Of course, Paddy knew all about this. He had been brought up that
way. "Be sure, and then you'll never be sorry" had been one of
his mother's favorite sayings, and he had always remembered it.
Indeed, it had saved him a great deal of trouble. So now he was
perfectly willing to go right on working and let his hidden
visitors watch him until they were sure that he meant them no
harm. You see, he himself felt quite sure that none of them was
big enough to do him any harm. Little Joe Otter was the only one
he had any doubts about, and he felt quite sure that Little Joe
wouldn't try to pick a quarrel. So he kept right on cutting
trees, trimming off the branches, and hauling the trunks down to
the dam he was building. Some of them he floated down the
Laughing Brook. This was easier.
Now when the little people of the Smiling Pool, who were the
first to find out that Paddy the Beaver had come to the Green
Forest, had started up the Laughing Brook to see what he was
doing, they had told the Merry Little Breezes where they were
going. The Merry Little Breezes had been greatly excited. They
couldn't understand how a stranger could have been living in the
Green Forest without their knowledge. You see, they quite forgot
that they very seldom wandered to the deepest part of the Green
Forest. Of course they started at once, as fast as they could go,
to tell all the other little people who live on or around the
Green Meadows, all but Old Man Coyote. For some reason they
thought it best not to tell him. They were a little doubtful
about Old Man Coyote. He was so big and strong and so sly and
smart that all his neighbors were afraid of him. Perhaps the
Merry Little Breezes had this fact in mind, and knew that none
would dare go to call on the stranger if they knew that Old Man
Coyote was going too. Anyway, they simply passed the time of day
with Old Mr. Coyote and hurried on to tell everyone else, and the
very last one they met was Sammy Jay.
CHAPTER IV Sammy Jay Speaks His Mind
When Sammy Jay reached the place deep in the Green Forest Where
Paddy the Beaver was so hard at work, he didn't hide as had the
little four-footed people. You see, of course, he had no reason
to hide, because he felt perfectly safe. Paddy had just cut a big
tree, and it fell with a crash as Sammy came hurrying up. Sammy
was so surprised that for a minute he couldn't find his tongue.
He had not supposed that anybody but Farmer Brown or Farmer
Brown's boy could cut down so large a tree as that, and it quite
took his breath away. But he got it again in a minute. He was
boiling with anger, anyway, to think that he should have been the
last to learn that Paddy had come down from the North to make his
home in the Green Forest, and here was a chance to speak his
mind.
"Thief! thief! thief!" He screamed in his harshest voice.
Paddy the Beaver looked up with a twinkle in his eyes. "Hello,
Mr. Jay. I see you haven't any better manners than your cousin
who lives up where I come from," said he.
"Thief! thief! thief!" screamed Sammy, hopping up and down, he was
so angry.
"Meaning yourself, I suppose," said Paddy. "I never did see an
honest Jay, and I don't suppose I ever will."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Peter Rabbit, who had quite forgotten that
he was hiding.
"Oh, how do you do, Mr. Rabbit? I'm very glad you have called on
me this morning," said Paddy, just as if he hadn't known all the
time just where Peter was. "Mr. Jay seems to have gotten out of
the wrong side of his bed this morning."
Peter laughed again. "He always does," said he. "If he didn't, he
wouldn't be happy. You wouldn't think it to look at him, but he
is happy right now. He doesn't know it, but he is. He always is
happy when he can show what a bad temper he has."
Sammy Jay glared down at Peter. Then he glared at Paddy. And all
the time he still shrieked "Thief!" as hard as ever he could.
Paddy kept right on working, paying no attention to Sammy. This
made Sammy more angry than ever. He kept coming nearer and nearer
until at last he was in the very tree that Paddy happened to be
cutting. Paddy's eyes twinkled.
"I'm no thief!" he exclaimed suddenly.
"You are! You are! Thief! Thief!" shrieked Sammy. "You're
steeling our trees!"
"They're not your trees," retorted Paddy. "They belong to the
Green Forest, and the Green Forest belongs to all who love it,
and we all have a perfect right to take what we need from it. I
need these trees, and I've just as much right to take them as you
have to take the fat acorns that drop in the fall."
"No such thing!" screamed Sammy. You know he can't talk without
screaming, and the more excited he gets, the louder he screams.
"No such thing! Acorns are food. They are meant to eat. I have to
have them to live. But you are cutting down whole trees. You are
spoiling the Green Forest. You don't belong here. Nobody invited
you, and nobody wants you. You're a thief!"
Then up spoke Jerry Muskrat who, you know, is cousin to Paddy the
Beaver.
"Don't you mind him," said he, pointing at Sammy Jay. "Nobody
does. He's the greatest trouble-maker in the Green Forest or on
the Green Meadows. He would steal from his own relatives. Don't
mind what he says, Cousin Paddy."
Now all this time Paddy had been working away just as if no one
was around. Just as Jerry stopped speaking, Paddy thumped the
ground with his tail, which is his way of warning people to watch
out, and suddenly scurried away as fast as he could run. Sammy
Jay was so surprised that he couldn't find his tongue for a
minute, and he didn't notice anything peculiar about that tree.
Then suddenly he felt himself falling. With a frightened scream,
he spread his wings to fly, but branches of the tree swept him
down with them right into the Laughing Brook. You see, while
Sammy had been speaking his mind, Paddy the Beaver had cut down
the very tree in which he was sitting.
Sammy wasn't hurt, but he was wet and muddy and terribly
frightened--the most miserable-looking Jay that ever was seen. It
was too much for all the little people who were hiding. They just
had to laugh. Then they all came out to pay their respects to
Paddy the Beaver.
CHAPTER V Paddy Keeps His Promise.
Paddy the Beaver kept right on working just as if he hadn't any
visitors. You see, it is a big undertaking to build a dam. And
when that was done there was a house to build and a supply of
food for the winter to cut and store. Oh, Paddy the Beaver had no
time for idle gossip, you may be sure! So he kept right on
building his dam. It didn't look much like a dam at first, and
some of Paddy's visitors turned up their noses when they first
saw it. They had heard stories of what a wonderful dam-builder
Paddy was, and they had expected to see something like the
smooth, grass-covered bank with which Farmer Brown kept the Big
River from running back on his low lands. Instead, all they saw
was a great pile of poles and sticks which looked like anything
but a dam.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Billy Mink, "I guess we needn't worry about the
Laughing Brook and the Smiling Pool, if that is the best Paddy
can do. Why, the water of the Laughing Brook will work through
that in no time."
Of course Paddy heard him, but he said nothing, just kept right
on working.
"Just look at the way he has laid those sticks!" continued Billy
Mink. "Seems as if anyone would know enough to lay them across
the Laughing Brook instead of just the other way. I could build a
better dam than that."
Paddy said nothing; he just kept right on working.
"Yes, Sir," Billy boasted. "I could build a better dam than that.
Why, that pile of sticks will never stop the water."
"Is something the matter with your eyesight, Billy Mink?"
inquired Jerry Muskrat.
"Of course not!" retorted Billy indignantly. "Why?"
"Oh, nothing much, only you don't seem to notice that already the
Laughing Brook is over its banks above Paddy's dam," replied
Jerry, who had been studying the dam with a great deal of
interest.
Billy looked a wee bit foolish, for sure enough there was a
little pool just above the dam, and it was growing bigger.
Sammy was terribly put out to think that anything should be going
on that he didn't know about first. You know he is very fond of
prying into the affairs of other people, and he loves dearly to
boast that there is nothing going on in the Green Forest or on
the Green Meadows that he doesn't know about. So now his pride
was hurt, and he was in a terrible rage as he started after the
Merry Little Breezes for the place deep in the Green Forest where
they said Paddy the Beaver was at work. He didn't believe a word
of it, but he would see for himself.
Paddy still kept at work, saying nothing. He was digging in front
of the dam now, and the mud and grass he dug up he stuffed in
between the ends of the sticks and patted them down with his
hands. He did this all along the front of the dam and on top of
it, too, wherever he thought it was needed. Of course this made
it harder for the water to work through, and the little pond
above the dam began to grow faster. It wasn't a great while
before it was nearly to the top of the dam, which at first was
very low. Then Paddy brought more sticks. This was easier now,
because he could float them down from where he was cutting. He
would put them in place on the top of the dam, then hurry for
more. Wherever it was needed, he would put in mud. He even rolled
a few stones in to help hold the mass.
So the dam grew and grew, and so did the pond above the dam. Of
course, it took a good many days to build so big a dam, and a lot
of hard work! Every morning the little people of the Green Forest
and the Green Meadow would visit it, and every morning they would
find that it had grown a great deal in the night, for that is
when Paddy likes best to work.
By this time, the Laughing Brook had stopped laughing, and down
in the Smiling Pool there was hardly water enough for the minnows
to feel safe a minute. Billy Mink had stopped making fun of the
dam, and all the little people who live in the Laughing Brook and
Smiling Pool were terribly worried.
To be sure, Paddy had warned them of what he was going to do, and
had promised that as soon as his pond was big enough, the water
would once more run in the Laughing Brook. They tried to believe
him, but they couldn't help having just a wee bit of fear that he
might not be wholly honest. You see, they didn't know him, for he
was a stranger. Jerry Muskrat was the only one who seemed
absolutely sure that everything would be all right. Perhaps that
was because Paddy is his cousin, and Jerry couldn't help feeling
proud of such a big cousin and one who was so smart.
So day by day the dam grew, and pond grew, and one morning
Grandfather Frog, down in what had once been the Smiling Pool,
heard a sound that made his heart jump for joy. It was a murmur
that kept growing and growing, until at last it was the merry
laugh of the Laughing Brook. Then he knew that Paddy had kept his
word, and water would once more fill the Smiling Pool.
CHAPTER VI Farmer Brown's Boy Grows Curious.
Now it happened that the very day before Paddy the Beaver decided
that his pond was big enough, and so allowed the water to run in
the Laughing Brook once more, Farmer Brown's boy took it into his
head to go fishing in the Smiling Pool. Just as usual he went
whistling down across the Green Meadows. Somehow, when he goes
fishing, he always feels like whistling. Grandfather Frog heard
him coming and dived into the little bit of water remaining in
the Smiling Pool and stirred up the mud at the bottom so that
Farmer Brown's boy shouldn't see him.
Nearer and nearer drew the whistle. Suddenly it stopped right
short off. Farmer Brown's boy had come in sight of the Smiling
Pool or rather, it was what used to be the Smiling Pool. Now
there wasn't any Smiling Pool, for the very little pool left was
too small and sickly looking to smile. There were great banks of
mud, out of which grew the bulrushes. The lily pads were
forlornly stretched out toward the tiny pool of water remaining.
Where the banks were steep and high, the holes that Jerry Muskrat
and Billy Mink knew so well were plain to see. Over at one side
stood Jerry Muskrat's house, wholly out of water.
Somehow, it seemed to Farmer Brown's boy that he must be
dreaming. He never, never had seen anything like this before, not
even in the very driest weather of the hottest part of the
summer. He looked this way and looked that way. The Green Meadows
looked just as usual. The Green Forest looked just as usual. The
Laughing Brook--ha! What was the matter with the Laughing Brook?
He couldn't hear it and that, you know, was very unusual. He
dropped his rod and ran over to the Laughing Brook. There wasn't
any brook. No, sir, there wasn't any brook; just pools of water
with the tiniest of streams trickling between. Big stones over
which he had always seen the water running in the prettiest of
little white falls were bare and dry. In the little pools
frightened minnows were darting about.
Farmer Brown's boy scratched his head in a puzzled way. "I don't
understand it," said he. "I don't understand it at all. Something
must have gone wrong with the springs that supply the water for
the Laughing Brook. They must have failed. Yes, Sir, that is just
what must have happened. But I never heard of such a thing
happening before, and I really don't see how it could happen. He
stared up into the Green Forest just as if he thought he could
see those springs. Of course, he didn't think anything of the
kind. He was just turning it all over in his mind. "I know what
I'll do, I'll go up to those springs this afternoon and find out
what the trouble is," he said out loud. "They are way over almost
on the other side of the Green Forest, and the easiest way to get
there will be to start from home and cut across the Old Pasture
up to the edge of the Mountain behind the Green Forest. If I try
to follow up the Laughing Brook now, it will take too long,
because it winds and twists so. Besides, it is too hard work."
With that, Farmer Brown's boy went back and picked up his rod.
Then he started for home across the Green Meadows, and for once
he wasn't whistling. You see, he was too busy thinking. In fact,
he was so busy thinking that he didn't see Jimmy Skunk until he
almost stepped on him, and then he gave a frightened jump and
ran, for without a gun he was just as much afraid of Jimmy as
Jimmy was of him when he did have a gun.
Jimmy just grinned and went on about his business. It always
tickles Jimmy to see people run away from him, especially people
so much bigger than himself; they look so silly.
"I should think that they would have learned by this time that if
they don't bother me, I won't bother them, he muttered as he
rolled over a stone to look for fat beetles. "Somehow, folks
never seem to understand me."
CHAPTER VII Farmer Brown's Boy Gets Another Surprise.
Across the Old Pasture to the foot of the Mountain back of the
Green Forest tramped Farmer Brown's boy. Ahead of him trotted
Bowser the Hound, sniffing and snuffing for the tracks of Reddy
or Granny Fox. Of course he didn't find them, for Reddy and
Granny hadn't been up in the Old Pasture for a long time. But he
did find old Jed Thumper, the big gray Rabbit who had made things
so uncomfortable for Peter Rabbit once upon a time and gave old
Jed such a fright that he didn't look where he was going and
almost ran head-first into Farmer Brown's boy.
"Hi, there, you old cottontail!" yelled Farmer Brown's boy, and
this frightened off Jed still more, so that he actually ran right
past his own castle of bullbriars without seeing it.