Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail: The Jolly Beaver Boys

by Howard Roger Garis

"Now I'll begin the play-house," thought the little beaver boy. "I can't finish it today, but when Toodle gets well he can help me."

So Noodle began. He gathered a lot of sticks and pushed them down in the mud of his pond. Then he got more and arranged them around in a pile, plastering them with mud he dug up from the bottom, under the water. This mud he carried in his front paws, walking on his hind ones like a bear in the circus.

Soon the play-house began to look almost like the real ones beavers make. And while Noodle was taking a rest and glancing from side to side to see that there was no danger, all of a sudden, out from the woods sprang a bad old fox. He made a run for Noodle, and almost caught him, but the little beaver boy, thudding on the ground with his tail, to warn others who might be near of the danger, gave a jump into the water and dived down under it.

"I'll fool that fox!" thought Noodle. "I'll just swim along and stay under water until he goes away."

So he stayed under, but after a while he wanted to get some air to breathe, and of course he had to come up. And, as it happened, he came up near shore where the fox was waiting for him.

"Ah ha! I have you!" cried the fox, and he made a grab for Noodle. But Noodle dived under water again. The fox didn't dare go in water, you know, for he couldn't swim as well as Noodle.

"I fooled him again," thought the little beaver boy. "I guess he must be gone by this time, and I can come out." Noodle had to come up for another breath of air, but no sooner was his nose out of the water than the fox, who had been watching, made another grab for him, and Noodle only got a sniff of air.

"No you don't get me!" cried Noodle, and down he went again. But he was getting tired, and out of breath, and I don't know what would have happened if Grandpa Whackum, the old gentleman beaver, hadn't come along just then. He saw what the trouble was, and the danger Noodle was in. So Grandpa Whackum gathered up a big ball of mud on the end of his tail, and, when that fox was making another grab for Noodle, Grandpa Whackum threw the mud in the eyes of the fox.

"Oh, wow!" cried the fox, and then he couldn't see (not even with his glasses on) to bite Noodle, so the little beaver boy got safely away, and so did Grandpa Whackum, and all the fox had to eat that day was peanut shells. But it served him right, I think.

So that's how Noodle built a dam, and what happened afterward, and next, in case the man in the moon doesn't come down and take my straw hat to play ball with, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle in the canal.