STORY XI

HOW CRACKIE BROKE HER DOLL

I may as well tell you at the very beginning, for you would find it out sooner or later anyhow, I suppose, so I may as well tell you at the beginning, that this is partly a story for girls, and partly a story for boys. The girl part is about the doll, and the boy part is about breaking it, and after that—

Well, I guess I had better tell you the story, and let you see for yourselves what happened afterward.

The reason this story is to be both for girls and boys is because my little girl asked me to write a story with a doll in it. I said I would.

And right after that my little boy, who heard her, said:

"And please put a scary part in it for me."

You see boys like the scary part. So that's why this is a sort of double-jointed story—one part for girls and the other for boys.

Now that I have explained it I will begin.

One day Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, hurried home from school with his brother Noodle, and said:

"I know what let's do! We'll get in our play-boat, and go off on a voyage. Maybe we'll find an island where oranges and bananas and cocoanuts grow, and we can play we're shipwrecked, and pirates and all like that."

"All right—let's," agreed Noodle. "Shall we take our sister Crackie along?"

"No, not this time," said Toodle. "She might be afraid if we played pirates, or anything like that. Besides, she is having a good time with her doll. We'll leave her home."

And, truly, Crackie, who was the baby beaver girl, who was always dropping things, and breaking or cracking them (without the least in the world meaning to), Crackie, I say, was playing with her doll. It was a new wooden doll, made from a part of a birch tree that Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all, had gnawed down for the little girl. Crackie's rubber doll was asleep under the refrigerator, where she would be nice and cool.

So Toodle and Noodle started off in their play-boat which was a log hollowed out so they could sit in it. They used their tails for sails.

Now those beaver boys could swim much faster and better than any boat you ever saw, and that's why it is so queer that they wanted to go off in a hollowed-out log. But they did. Why, do you know, I have seen real boys who would rather get on an old raft made of boards, and paddle around in a mud puddle, getting all wet—they would rather do that almost any day than go to school, or have their hair cut or a tooth pulled. Isn't that odd?

Well, anyhow, as the peanut man sometimes says, Toodle and Noodle sailed off and Crackie stayed home and played with her doll. She made a new dress for it out of part of a clothespin and a lead pencil. And she made a hat out of a strawberry box, trimming it with shavings. That's what it is to have a wooden doll, you see.

And now, for a minute or so, I'll tell you what happened to Noodle and Toodle. This is where the scary part comes in, so cuddle down in papa's or mamma's lap if you like, though it isn't going to be so very scary.

The two little beaver boys sailed on and on in their play-boat and pretty soon they were nearly across the big beaver pond. And then they saw an island. It had some trees growing on it, and it looked to be a good place to pretend being shipwrecked, and pirates, and all like that, and Toodle called to Noodle:

"Let's land there, my brave old salt!" He said that, making believe he was a sailor, you understand.

"Ha! We will land there, messmate!" replied Noodle to Toodle, also making believe he was a sailor.

So they steered their boat toward the island and landed there. There were no orange trees, I am sorry to say, and no cocoanut ones, though I suppose I could just as well as not have written about them growing there. Perhaps next time I will. But, anyhow, as the hand organ man says occasionally, Toodle and Noodle saw a hickory nut tree there, and the two beaver boys thought they would get some of the nuts.

"We can eat some," said Toodle.

"And with the others we can play marbles," said Noodle.

With that they began to gnaw down the tree, for that to them, was easier than climbing up, as Billie or Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel brothers, would have done.

Well, Toodle and Noodle had the tree almost gnawed down, and they were thinking how good the nuts would taste, when, all of a sudden, the bad wolf, who owned the island and the trees, and all on it, came along, and he growled:

"Ah, ha! This is the time I have those beaver boys! Taking my trees, eh? Just for that I'll take them both off to jail and bite them on each of their ears. Wow!"

Wasn't he the bad old wolf, though?

So before Toodle or Noodle could run away, for they were not very quick on their feet on land, as I have told you, before they could get away the wolf had them both. He held Toodle in one paw and Noodle in the other, and he just glared at them, worse than a rag doll stares at the ceiling when she's asleep.

"Oh, please let us go!" begged Noodle. "I'll give you an ice cream cone if you do."

"Yes, and I'll give you two," said Toodle.

"No, sir-ee sir!" exclaimed the wolf, just as the coal man sometimes speaks before he brings in the ice. "I am going to take you off to jail," and away the wolf started with Toodle and Noodle.

Now, just about this time Crackie, the little girl beaver, had her wooden doll all dressed, and she thought she would start out to find her brothers. She asked some other boy and girl beavers, who were out playing after school, which way Toodle and Noodle had gone in their play-boat, and in this way Crackie started toward the make-believe shipwreck island. But she did not go in a boat—she swam, and carried her doll on her back so as not to wet her strawberry-box bonnet.

Crackie easily found the island, for she was a very smart little beaver girl, but at first she could not see her brothers. Then Crackie saw where the two boy beavers had started to gnaw down the hickory nut tree, and next she saw the tracks of the wolf, and she guessed what had happened.

"Oh, the bad wolf has my brothers!" said Crackie. "I am going to try to save them!"

So, without stopping to think that she, a little beaver girl, could not do much against a bad wolf, Crackie started out. And she had not gone very far before she came up behind a blackberry bush, on which strawberries happened to be growing, and on the other side of that bush sat the wolf, holding Toodle in one paw and Noodle in the other. The wolf had become tired and had stopped to rest.

"You boys are a regular nuisance," growled the wolf. "I wish I had you in jail now."

"Pray, do not take us if it is too much trouble," said Noodle, politely, hoping he and his brother would be let go.

"Oh, I'll take you to jail just the same," said the bad old wolf, "only I'll bite your ears now instead of after I get you there. It may be so dark when I get you to the jail that I can't see to do it."

Then Toodle and Noodle felt very badly at having started to gnaw down the hickory trees but they had not meant to do wrong, and if they had known the island belonged to the wolf they'd never have gone there at all.

"Well, I guess I'll bite your ears," said the wolf, and he opened his wide mouth. And, just as he did so, brave Crackie reached around from behind the strawberry-lemon pie bush, and right between the wolf's opened teeth she stuck her wooden doll, and when the wolf closed down his jaws he bit on the wooden doll, instead of on Noodle's ear, and the doll broke in two.

So that's how Crackie spoiled her doll.

"Wow! Double wow and some pepper hash!" cried the wolf, as surprised as anything at having bitten on a wooden doll when he didn't mean to. "This is terrible!" And with that the wolf dropped Noodle and Toodle and ran off to have his dentist make him a new set of teeth, as he had broken his. So the two beaver boys were safe, you see.

Of course they were very thankful to Crackie for saving them, and they felt sorry about her broken doll. But the doll was easily fixed when Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, came along with some paste, so Crackie's pet was soon as good as ever.

Then she went home with Noodle and Toodle to have her supper and get to bed. And in the next story, if the lady's hatpin doesn't stick in the automobile tire and let all the juice run out, like an orange shortcake at a picnic, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle playing Indian.