STORY XXVII

CRACKIE AND JOIE KAT

"Mamma, is Crackie going to school today?" asked Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, one morning, when it was almost time for the first bell to ring.

Mrs. Flat-tail looked out of the window of the beaver house in the pond behind the dam, and said:

"No, I think not. Her sniffle-snuffles are not much better today than they were yesterday. Besides, it is rather warm weather now, the pond is not frozen and it looks like snow. I think I shall keep her home until tomorrow, at least. Now run along, Toodle—you and Noodle. And be good boys."

"We will," promised Noodle, as he caught up the red balloon-football, covered with leather. He and his brother and the other animal boys thought they would have a fine game that day.

Crackie, the little beaver girl, felt very lonesome after her brothers had left her. She had not been going to school very long, and she was in the kindergarten, but still she liked her teacher and her schoolmates. However, when a beaver girl has the sniffle-snuffles she can't very well go to school, for she sneezes all the time; and when the teacher asks how many three and two are she has to say:

"Ak-er-choo," which isn't the right answer at all.

So, as I say, Crackie felt a little lonesome. But her mamma let her help dry the breakfast dishes, and Crackie only dropped a saucer, which didn't break very much, only about half of it falling off.

"You are doing very well, Crackie," said Mrs. Flat-tail with a smile at the little beaver girl. "Soon we won't have to call you Crackie at all." You see Crackie had such an odd name because she used to be always dropping and cracking such things as dishes, and ice cream cones, and lollypops and all like that.

Well, after the dishes were dried Grandpa Whackum, the old beaver gentleman, said:

"I think I will go out and take a look at the dam. It may have some holes in it, where a bear or wolf tried to tear it down last night, and if the dam breaks, and all the water runs out of our pond, we will have a hard time, for it will not rain much more this year."

So Grandpa Whackum started out, but just as he was going to dive down through the front door, which was under water so no bad animals could get in, the old beaver gentleman cried:

"Oh, dear me, suz dud! There's a button off my overcoat right where it goes around my neck. I must have it sewed on, or the cold wind will come in, and I'll have the epizootic, and the sniffle-snuffles, too."

"I'll sew it on for you, Grandpa Whackum," said Crackie, kindly.

So sitting down on her tail, which was like a stool, you know, the little beaver girl used a thorn from the bramble briar bush for a needle, and some strong strings of dried grass for thread, and so she sewed the button on her grandpa's coat.

Then he went out to look at the dam, that kept the water in the pond from running off—maybe to a moving picture show—and Mrs. Flat-tail said:

"Well, I do declare! It's almost ten o'clock, and I promised I'd go over to Mrs. Wibblewobble's house, and show her how to make corn-meal fritters. Would you mind staying alone a little while, Crackie?"

"Oh, no, mamma, of course not," answered the little beaver girl. "I'll just make a new dress for my doll Anna Jane Huckelberry Puddingstick. She needs a new dress very badly."

Mrs. Flat-tail went out and that left Crackie all alone in the beaver house. But still she did not mind. She was sewing away, and wondering whether she should put a thing-a-ma-bob on the skirt, with three rows of lace inserted on the bias, or whether the dress would look nicer with some apple pie frosting, trimmed with cocoanut macaroons, on the what-you-may-call-it. She had just about decided to use the ice cream puffs on the sleeves, when, all of a sudden, Crackie heard a terrible noise outside.

Some one cried:

"Ha! Now I'll get you! Now I have you! Oh, you can't get away from me now."

And then another voice said:

"Meaouw! Meaouw! Meaouw!"

Next there came a big thump on top of the beaver house that was built in the middle of the pond, and a voice cried out:

"Oh! whoever is in there please let me in! Toodle! Noodle! Please let me in!"

"My goodness!" cried Crackie, and she jumped up so suddenly that her rubber doll, who was asleep in her lap, fell to the floor. But it doesn't hurt rubber dolls to fall, and this one went right on sleeping just as if nothing had happened. "What can that be?" thought Crackie, wishing her mamma would come back.

"Oh, please let me in!" cried the voice again, and there was a pounding on the roof of the house. Outside, as though it came from the opposite bank of the beaver pond, another voice said:

"Oh, ho! You can't get away from me that way. I'll be there in a minute!"

There was a splashing in the water, and the voice on the beaver house roof begged once more:

"Oh, will no one let me in? Toodle! Noodle!"

"Who—who are you?" asked Crackie, thinking maybe it was a bad fox, trying to play a trick on her, and pretending to be some one in trouble. "Who are you, and what is the matter?" went on Crackie.

"Oh, I am Joie Kat, the brother of Tommie and Kittie Kat," was the answer. "I was out walking in the woods, and a bad dog chased me. I ran up a tree and out on a limb that was high up in the air, right over your house. Then I slipped and fell, but the dog still kept after me. I fell on the roof of your house, where I am now, and if you don't let me in that dog will soon swim over here from shore and grab me. Oh, please, let me in, whoever you are!"

"I'm Crackie Flat-tail," said the little beaver girl. "I couldn't go to school today because I have the sniffle-snuffles, but my brothers went, and I'm home all alone, and—"

"Oh, if you please," meaouwed Joie, "you can tell me all that when I get in. The dog is coming—the dog is swimming to get me!"

And Crackie could hear the dog going: "Bow—wow—wow," like anything; really she could.

"Of course, I'll let you in," said the little beaver girl, so she opened a window near the roof, and Joie Kat, being a very good climbing kitten boy, easily got in it, and so he was safe from the dog for a while, anyhow.

"Oh, ho!" growled the dog, when he saw what Joie had done. "You needn't think you can get away from me. I'm going to stay here until you come out; that's what I'll do!"

"Will he?" asked Crackie.

"I—I'm afraid he will," said Joie, sadly like.

"Just wait until my Grandpa Whackum comes back," said Crackie. "He'll attend to your case; you bad old dog!" and, leaning out of the window, Crackie threw the potato masher at the growling-barking creature. But girls—even beaver girls—can't throw very straight, so Crackie did not hit the dog.

"Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!" laughed the dog. "You can't scare me! I'm not afraid of you."

"Oh, what shall I do?" asked Joie Kat, who was all in a tremble. "I wish I'd never climbed the big tree!"

"Oh, I'll think of a way to save you," said Crackie.

Just then along came Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all. He saw the dog on shore, but, very wisely, Grandpa Whackum dived down under water and swam into the house without the dog seeing him. Then Crackie and Joie told the old beaver gentleman what had happened.

"Ha! I'll fix that dog!" cried Grandpa Whackum. So he called all the other big beavers together under water and they slipped up on shore behind that dog, when he wasn't looking, and when he was just thinking and wondering how he could get Joie, all the beavers threw mud with their tails all over that dog until he looked like a mud pie, or maybe a mud puddle.

"Oh, wow!" cried the dog, and then he had to run home and jump in the bath tub to get clean.

"Now he's gone and you can safely go home, Joie," said Crackie.

"Oh, but your house is in the middle of water and I can't swim," said the little kitten boy. "How can I get home?"

"I'll tell you," spoke Crackie. "We'll get a wooden box and make a little boat of it and in that you can sail to shore, and go home without even getting your tail wet."

And that's what they did. Grandpa Whackum made the box boat and Crackie helped Joie get into it through the outside upper window, for the front door of the beaver house was under water. Then Joie sailed safely home, and he never climbed tall trees again.

So no more now, but in the next story, if the clothes basket doesn't go to sleep out in the hammock and catch cold in its handles, I'll tell you about Toodle and Jimmie Wibblewobble.