STORY XX

CRACKIE GOES TO SCHOOL

"Come on, boys, wake up!" called Grandpa Whackum, the old beaver gentleman, to Toodle and Noodle, the two beaver boys, at their home in the pond one morning. "Be lively, now! I guess you forget what morning this is."

"Ha! Is it Christmas?" asked Noodle, as he rubbed his sleepy eyes with his paw.

"Or Fourth of July?" asked Toodle, flopping his big, broad tail up and down to see if any mosquitoes had bitten him in the night. But none had, I'm glad to say.

"No, it isn't Fourth of July or Christmas," answered Grandpa Whackum, looking out on the beaver dam that held the waters of the pond from running away. The old gentleman beaver wanted to see if, in the dam, there were any holes that needed mending.

"Today is when your little sister, Crackie, starts for school," went on Grandpa Whackum. He was called that, you know, because he used to whack his tail on the ground to tell when there was danger coming, so the other beavers could go and hide away.

And the little beaver girl was called Crackie because she was always dropping dishes and things and cracking them. She didn't mean to, of course, and lately she didn't drop nearly so many as she used to at first.

"My goodness!" cried Toodle, hopping out of bed. "And so Crackie is to go to school today?"

"Yes; and you and Noodle are to take her," said Grandpa Whackum. "So hurry down to breakfast. You don't want to be late for school the first day Crackie goes, you know."

"No, indeed," said Noodle. "Come on, Toodle, we'll have a race to see who gets dressed first."

So the beaver boys raced at putting on their rubber clothes, which they could wear in the water without getting wet, for beavers are very fond of swimming, you know, and live in the water half the time.

"May I wear my red dress and brown hair ribbons?" asked Crackie of her mamma at the breakfast table.

"I guess so," said Mrs. Flat-tail, who felt a little sorry because her only daughter was growing up big enough to go to school.

Well, pretty soon, in a little while, not so very long, Toodle and Noodle and Crackie were all ready for school. Off they started, after kissing their mamma and Grandpa Whackum good-by. Into the water they jumped, and away they swam.

The school was in an old boat, as I have told you, and often this boat would float away, making it so hard for the animal children to find it that they were sometimes late. But this time Professor Rat, the school teacher, had tied the boat fast to an old stump, so it was easily found, and no one was late.

Toodle and Noodle took their little sister inside the school.

"Ah, ha!" said Professor Rat, kindly. "A new little pupil! Well, Crackie, we are glad to see you. We hope you will like it here. I think first I will put you in the kindergarten class. Later on, when you learn more, you may sit with Toodle and Noodle and Sammie and Susie Littletail and the others."

So Crackie went in the kindergarten class and had a little chair all to herself. Her teacher was a nice lady bug, who could play a tin piano solo so tickily-ickly-like that you would always want to dance. And sometimes she let her pupils march around the room while she played.

Well, after a bit, Crackie looked around, and over on one side of the room she saw her brothers, Toodle and Noodle.

"Say, Toodle!" cried Crackie, right out loud in school, "I'm hungry. Can't I have some of that ginger-bread cake mamma gave you to put in your pocket?"

"Oh, hush, Crackie, dear!" cried Toodle, but all the other animal children laughed to hear Crackie call out loud that way in school.

"But I am hungry!" said Crackie, and tears came into her eyes. You see she had never been to school before, and she did not quite know how to act. "I'm very hungry!" the little beaver girl went on. "Can't you give me something to eat, Noodle, dear?"

Noodle got red behind his ears to think that his sister acted so in school. Professor Rat looked up over his glasses.

"You must not talk in school, Crackie, dear," he said gently. "The others can't study if you talk."

"But I am hungry," went on Crackie. "Maybe if I had something to eat I wouldn't talk. You could try it, Mr. Rat."

Everybody laughed at that—it sounded so funny—and Mr. Rat tried not to smile as he said:

"No, Crackie, we're not allowed to eat in school. You must please be quiet."

"School is a funny place," said Crackie, still speaking out loud. "You can't talk and you can't eat. What can you do?"

"Really, my dear," said Professor Rat, "you must keep quiet. I'm afraid you're not old enough to come to school."

So Crackie kept quiet for a little while and played with her kindergarten blocks and cut some funny things out of paper. But at last she could not stand it any longer. She cried out:

"Isn't it time to eat yet, Toodle?"

Well, it was so quiet just then, with no one saying anything, or reciting, that Crackie's voice sounded very loudly, and every one laughed.

"Crackie," said Professor Rat, and he had to speak sharply, "you really must keep quiet, or else go home."

"Then please let me go home," said Crackie. "I don't have to keep so quiet there and I can get something to eat. Toodle, Noodle, please take me home," and she got up out of her seat, and walked over to her brothers.

"Oh, Crackie!" cried the lady bug teacher, sadly like.

"You mustn't do that," said Professor Rat, and really he didn't know what to do himself. He had never had any one like Crackie in school before. And, really, she didn't mean to be bad. She just didn't know any better. It was her first day, you see.

"I want to talk, I'm hungry, I want to go home," said Crackie, as if that was all there was to it. She didn't see why she couldn't do just as she had been used to doing at home.

"Come on, Toodle and Noodle," she called. "School is no fun. I'm going home!"

Well, of course that upset everything. All the boy and girl animals laughed, and they couldn't study. The lady bug teacher, and Professor Rat himself, did not know what to do with Crackie. Mr. Rat was just thinking that perhaps he had better send one of her brothers home with Crackie when the little beaver girl, who was standing next to the window, cried out:

"Oh, the alligator! The bad, old skillery alligator! He is coming right in at the side door!"

And that was so. Crackie had gotten up just in time to see the alligator, and, only for her, maybe the bad creature would have gotten into the school before any one could stop him.

"Ha!" cried Professor Rat. "The skillery-scalery alligator, eh? I'll fix him! I'm glad you told me, Crackie."

Then the rat gentleman took two blackboard erasers in his paws. He clapped them together—the erasers, I mean—making a noise like a gun, and a lot of chalk dust that was on the erasers flew out, making it look just like smoke from a cannon, and when the 'gator saw this, and when he heard the bang-bang noise, he cried out:

"Wow! I guess I made a mistake. This must be where hunters or soldiers live. This is no place for me!" And away he went, taking his double-jointed tail with him.

"Crackie," said Professor Rat, "you saved us all from the alligator by seeing him in time for me to scare him away. I guess, after all, it's a good thing you came to school, even if you did talk."

"And may I have something to eat?" asked the little beaver girl. "If I may I don't want to go home."

"Give her some of that ginger-bread cake," said Mr. Rat to Toodle. "I guess it won't hurt to let her eat in school, and she is so little, and she was so brave."

So Crackie ate some cake, and she felt better, and all the other animal children wished they had some. Then they had more lessons, and soon school was out, and, after all, Crackie was glad she came.

So, on the next page, if the peanut man doesn't take away our refrigerator to roast his chestnuts on at the moving picture show, I'll tell you about Toodle's roller skates.