STORY V

GRANDPA WHACKUM IS CAUGHT

"Come, boys!" called Grandpa Whackum, the old gentleman beaver, to Toodle and Noodle, the little beaver boys, as they awoke one morning in their mud and stick house in the pond. "We must be off early today for we have a great deal to do."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Toodle. "I was going to play ball with Bully No-tail, the green frog, this morning."

"And I was going to play tag on the flat lily pad leaves with Bawly, his brother," spoke Noodle. "What do we have to do, grandpa?"

"I am going to show you how to dig a canal," answered the old gentleman beaver.

Toodle looked at Noodle, and Noodle looked at Toodle. Then they both looked sort of ashamed-like.

"Do you mean a canal like the one we dug the other day, when we wanted to get away from the bad lynx?" asked Noodle, brushing a mosquito off his ear.

"No," answered Grandpa Whackum with a laugh, as he got up from where he was sitting on his tail. "You dug that canal all right, only you didn't look where it was going to end, and you nearly let all the water from our pond run away through it. No, I'll show you how to make a canal just right."

You remember I told you how, when Toodle and Noodle went to the store for their mamma, they had to dig a canal to get away from a bad animal.

"Well, I guess then we'd better go with you," said Toodle, "for we must learn how to make canals in the right way. Sometimes we might want to get away from a bear by swimming in one of them."

"That's so," agreed Noodle. So he and his brother gave up the idea of playing ball or tag, and off they set with their grandpa, who was the oldest beaver in all the beaver colony, or city, and the wisest and strongest.

"You'll have plenty of time to play after you practice your canal-digging lesson," went on the old gentleman. "Come along, we're going over to the aspen tree grove."

"Hadn't we better take along some sandwiches, or maybe an ice cream cone to eat," suggested Toodle. "We've just had our breakfast, I know," he added as he saw his mamma looking at him, "but we may be gone a long while."

"Oh, there will be plenty to eat where we are going boys," said Grandpa Whackum, with a laugh and a whistle through his big, orange-colored front teeth. "There are sweet aspen trees there, and willows with nice, thick, juicy bark—indeed, you'll not get hungry, even though you don't have an ice cream cone. Come along."

So off the old gentleman beaver went, with Toodle and Noodle frisking on ahead. Mr. Flat-tail, their papa, stayed home to plaster with mud a hole his wife had found on the roof of the house in the pond. It would never do to have a hole there, for a bad water rat might easily scratch it larger, and some night, when Toodle and Noodle were asleep he might sneak in and bite them. No, indeed!

As Grandpa Whackum and the two boys swam along the pond, and then went out on dry land to waddle for a short distance, Toodle suddenly exclaimed:

"Why, I know where this is!"

"Where?" asked his brother Noodle.

"It's the same place where I had my first lesson in cutting down a tree!" cried the little beaver boy. "That time I was caught under it, you know."

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Noodle. "Is that where we are going, Grandpa Whackum?"

"The very place," said the old beaver gentleman, as he kindly stopped to allow a toad that accidentally sat on his tail to hop off. "And, boys, we are going to dig a canal so we can float down through it, on the water that will run in, the very tree Toodle cut down. That tree is good to eat, Toodle, my boy," went on Grandpa Whackum, "and it will be very good this winter."

"Oh, fine!" cried Toodle, and he was very glad that he could be of some use to the other beavers, even if it was only in cutting down one tree for use as food.

"I wish I could cut down a tree!" exclaimed Noodle.

"Well, you can soon," promised his grandpa. "But now I need you both to help dig the canal. We will soon begin. Here is a little brook that runs into our pond. Now if we dig a sort of ditch from this brook to where Toodle's tree is, we can float it right to our house, and that's what we'll do."

Soon the work of digging the canal was started. The old gentleman beaver and Toodle and Noodle used their sharp claws to loosen the earth. Then they would carry it off to one side, either holding it in their front paws, which were like hands, or by taking a lot of it on their tail, and holding their tail close to their body so the dirt would not slip off. In this way they soon had quite a ditch dug, and when the water from the little brook ran in it would be a canal.

"You boys are doing very well," said Grandpa Whackum, after a bit. "I think I will leave you for a little while and go off in the wood to see if there are any more good trees to cut down for winter. If there are I'll show Noodle, tomorrow, how to cut them. While I'm gone you boys can finish the canal."

So Grandpa Whackum, washing the mud from his tail, went off in the aspen grove, and Toodle and Noodle worked harder than ever on the canal. Soon it was dug all the way to where lay the tree Toodle had cut down.

"Now let's rest," suggested Noodle. "When Grandpa comes back he'll show us how to cut down the little wall of dirt that is between the brook and our canal, and that will let in the water. Then we can float the tree home."

"And while we're waiting let's eat," suggested his brother. So they gnawed off some sweet willow bark, which is as good to them as are lollypops or popcorn candies to you children.

Toodle and Noodle were just finishing their little bark lunch, when, all of a sudden, they heard a voice calling:

"Help! Help! Help!"

"Hark! Who's that?" asked Toodle.

Then they heard a whistle and the sound:

"Whack! Whack! Thud-ud-dud!"

"That's Grandpa Whackum!" cried Noodle. "He must be in trouble!"

"Help! Oh, boys, come and help me!" they heard the old beaver gentleman calling. "I'm caught in a trap!"

Toodle and Noodle rushed as fast as they could toward where they heard the sounds. All the while the old beaver gentleman was thumping his flat tail on the ground, to tell his little grandsons how to reach him.

Pretty soon they came to where he was, and there poor Grandpa Whackum stood, caught fast by his hind leg in a wooden trap.

"Oh, boys!" he cried. "Hurry and get me out! I was walking along, looking up at the trees to make sure which were the best to cut, when I stepped into this trap. It has snapped shut on my paw, and I can't turn around to gnaw myself loose! Can you do it for me?"

"Of course we can!" cried Toodle bravely.

"Right away, quick!" cried Noodle.

Then with their orange-colored front teeth those beaver boys gnawed and gnawed on the wooden trap until they had gnawed it all to pieces and their grandpa could come out. He was not much hurt, I'm glad to say. And the hunter who set the trap, thinking to catch a beaver, was much disappointed that night, I guess.

"It was very foolish of me not to look where I was going," said Grandpa Whackum, a few days later as he rubbed some witch hazel leaves on his sore paw, which was nearly well now. "I'll never get caught again, and I hope you boys will not, either. How is the canal coming on?"

"It is all done," said Toodle.

"Good!" cried Grandpa Whackum. Then he went with the two beaver boys to where they had dug. With a few strokes of his strong claws the old gentleman soon tore down the last bit of the earth, and that let the water into the canal. It was filled very shortly, and then the three beavers rolled into it the tree which Toodle had cut down.

"Now, sit on the log," said Grandpa Whackum. "Hold up your broad, flat tails for sails and we'll ride home." And they did, as nicely as you please, and every one was glad to see them.

So that's how Toodle and Noodle dug a canal and how Grandpa Whackum was caught and got out again. And on the next page, if I don't lose all my money, so I have to walk down town instead of going on my roller skates, I'll tell you about Toodle making a house.