STORY XXIII

TOODLE AND NOODLE IN TROUBLE

Of course, they didn't mean to do it. Children, whether they are animals, like little beaver boys, or real boys and girls like yourselves, never do mean to get into trouble, I suppose, but, sometimes they do, just the same.

And now, if you'd like to hear it, and won't wiggle too much, I'll tell you how Toodle and Noodle, the two little beaver boys, made a lot of trouble, just because they didn't stop to think.

It was one cool day, when there was no school, because Professor Rat had to go to the dentist's to have his spectacles fixed, that this happened.

Toodle and Noodle, with their sister Crackie, had started for school, and on the way, as they often did, they met Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrels, and Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, and Buddy and Brighteyes, the guinea pigs, and many more of their friends.

And when they reached the school, which was in an old boat that floated around the pond, there was a sign on the door reading:

"No School Today. Come Tomorrow."

"Oh, joy!" cried Toodle.

"Oh, happiness!" said Noodle.

"Now we can have some fun," spoke Bully the frog. "Come on, boys, what shall we do?"

"Come over by our beaver pond and maybe we can have some fun there," suggested Toodle.

"Yes, you can coast down our mud slide into the water," added Noodle.

"Oh, I couldn't do that—rabbits are not supposed to do that," said Sammie Littletail.

"Well, come on, anyhow," urged Noodle. "We'll find some way to have fun."

So many of the animal boys went with Toodle and Noodle over to the beaver pond, where there was a dam, or a long, low wall of mud, stones, sticks and grass to keep the water from running away. It was just such a dam as you children build in the gutter on a rainy day, only the beaver dam was larger.

Most of the little girl animals—such as Susie Littletail, Dottie Trot, the pony girl; Kittie Kat, the little pussy girl—and, of course, Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girls, went along with Crackie Flat-tail to the woods, to play with their dolls.

When Toodle and Noodle, and their boy friends, came running around the beaver pond—some of them, like Bully No-tail, the frog, swimming in it—the beaver lady said:

"My goodness, my sakes alive and some cherry potpie! What does this mean, Toodle—Noodle? Why are you home from school at this hour? It isn't out, is it?"

"There isn't any school, ma," said Toodle, putting away his books. "Professor Rat has the toothache in his spectacles. Oh, I'm so glad!"

"What!" cried Mrs. Flat-tail, "glad that any one is in pain?"

"Oh, no, ma," said Noodle, quickly. "Toodle meant that he was glad there was no school."

"That's it," said Toodle. "Come on, boys, let's have some fun. We'll go play around the dam, and I'll show you how we coast down the mud slide."

"Be very careful," said Mrs. Flat-tail. "There is a lot of water in the pond, on account of the big rain and the dam is not very strong. Don't do anything to break it, for that would make a lot of trouble. All the water would run out."

"We won't, ma," said Noodle, and really he meant it at the time he said it, of course.

Well, the boys who had come home with Toodle and Noodle began playing. They had lots of fun, and when the beaver boys slid down the slippery mud slide by sitting on their big tails, why, Sammie Littletail said it was as good as a circus, and wished he had a big tail such as all beavers have.

But of course when Toodle and Noodle slid down the mud slide that wasn't much fun for any one else, because the slide ran right into the water, into which Toodle and Noodle would go "ker-splash" every time they got to the bottom.

"I'll tell you what we can do," said Noodle, after a bit. "We can all go up to the top of the mud slide, and roll stones down it. The one who sends his stone the longest distance wins the game."

"That will be fun," cried Toodle. "Let's all get stones and roll them down."

Now this is what Toodle and Noodle should not have done, for the mud slide was close to the big dam that held in the waters of the beaver pond. And when the stones rolled down the slide they might break a hole in the dam. But Toodle and Noodle didn't think.

Soon all the boys were rolling stones, and many of the rocks hit the dam, bouncing off, turning somersaults over it, and some of them landing on it.

"Now for a big stone," cried Noodle, as he climbed up the slide, with a large rock on his tail, which was like a sled, you see.

"Oh, I have a bigger one!" cried Toodle, and up he came with one, too.

If Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all, had been there he never would have let the boys play such a game, and, really, Toodle and Noodle should have known better. But they didn't think.

All of a sudden Toodle and Noodle rolled their big stones down the slide, which was made slippery with water from the pond. Toodle's stone struck the dam near the middle and Noodle's over a little to one side.

And then something happened. The stones broke large holes in the dam, and through these holes the water began rushing out. The beaver pond began to get lower and lower.

"Oh, dear!" cried Noodle. "Look what we did!"

"Yes, I guess we'd better be getting home, boys," said Samuel Littletail. "The beavers will think we did that, Billie Bushytail."

"You're right!" cried the squirrel boy. Then he and all the others were going to leave Toodle and Noodle, when Bully, the frog, cried out:

"Oh, say! That isn't fair! When we are playing ball, and we break a window, we all help pay for it. Now that the dam is broken, though we didn't do it, we must help Toodle and Noodle fix it. Come on, boys."

The little beavers, who had felt sad when they saw all their friends going to leave them, were happy now. By this time the water was fast rushing out of the pond, through the holes the stones had made in the dam. And from their houses came rushing the grown-up beavers, wondering what had happened.

When they saw the trouble Toodle and Noodle had made they cried out:

"Oh, dear!"

For you know if the dam breaks and all the water in the pond runs out the beavers have to make another, or else they could not live in their houses. For their front doors have to be under water, you see, to keep out bad animals.

Just then up came Grandpa Whackum. He saw right away that something must be done.

"Quick, boys," he called to Toodle and Noodle and their boy friends. "Bring me mud and sticks and leaves and grass and stones and pieces of wood. We'll mend the dam!"

Those animal boys who were good swimmers jumped into the pond and brought to Grandpa Whackum the things the other animals gathered from the woods. Soon the old beaver gentleman had many willing helpers, and with his paws, which were like a monkey's hands, and his big tail he stopped up the holes in the dam. Toodle and Noodle helped also.

But, oh! what a lot of trouble they had made, though they did not mean to. Soon the dam was all fixed and the water was stopped from running out of the pond. Then Grandpa Whackum gave all the animal boys a penny for ice cream sandwiches and everybody was happy. Toodle and Noodle said they would never roll big stones down the mud slide again.

"Well, I hope there is school tomorrow," said Grandpa Whackum, with a sigh, as he sat down on his tail to rest.

So that's how Toodle and Noodle made trouble, though not meaning to, and on the next page, if the jam doesn't fall on the toy balloon and make it so sticky that it can't go out in the baby carriage with the rubber doll, I'll tell you about Toodle and the chestnuts.