STORY IV
Mr. Beaver Has a Surprise
Mr. Beaver was the most exclusive animal of the North Woods. He not only lived apart from the other animals, but he constructed a house which no others could get into. Often it was merely an island in the middle of the stream, which he built up himself, and no animals except perhaps Billy the Mink or Browny the Muskrat could even reach.
But Billy and Browny had no desire to reach it or to investigate it. Mr. Beaver was as cross as he was fierce and dangerous. He had long teeth, which he kept as sharp as a razor by cutting down trees with them. Teeth that could cut down a big oak or chestnut were certainly to be feared.
Living alone had made Mr. Beaver a good deal of an old cross-patch. Most people who live that way generally do get cross and irritable in time. Sometimes if another animal ran across Mr. Beaver’s house-top he would jump out and make a great time about it.
Mr. Beaver had constructed a dam across a branch of the river so the water above it had backed up and formed a big pond. Thus he could have his own private fishing pond, for the fish upstream couldn’t go down any further, and once caught in the pond Mr. Beaver killed a few whenever he was hungry.
Naturally he was very careful about this dam, and didn’t want any one crossing it or interfering with it. If it was broken in one place the water would rush through it and let out many of his fish.
One day, after a long roundabout trip through the woods, Bumper was returning home when he reached the river. The bridge made of fallen trees that crossed to the other side was nearly a mile below him.
“Oh, dear,” he groaned, “I’m dead tired, and now I must walk a mile down the river to get home.”
He stood on the brink of the stream looking longingly at the other side. Then, glancing up, his eyes opened with surprise and pleasure. There was Mr. Beaver’s dam a few yards above him, stretching from bank to bank.
“I suppose Mr. Beaver will object,” he said to himself, “but if I walk very softly he won’t hear me. Certainly not if he’s asleep. Anyway, I’m going across that dam.”