"Oh, I don't want to," spoke the other little beaver boy. "I haven't quite finished my lunch yet."
"I'll go with you," said Crackie to Noodle. "I've finished eating and I'd like to look for chestnut trees."
"All right, come on, little sister," said Noodle, and taking Crackie's paw in his, so she wouldn't fall and break her nose, off they started. Mind, I'm not saying for sure that Crackie would have fallen and broken her nose, but it might have happened, mightn't it?
That left Toodle all alone eating his lunch there in the grove of trees. He was taking his time about it, and thinking that pretty soon he would be through, and could go off and meet his sister and brother, when, all at once, he heard a bird singing in the tree over his head.
And it was such a sad song which the bird sang that Toodle felt the tears coming into his eyes, though he did not quite know why. The bird sang about how summer had gone, and all the pretty leaves were falling off the trees, and how soon it would be cold and icy, and nearly everyone would freeze. Brr-r-r-r!
"And I shall have to fly far, far away from here," sang the bird, most sadly.
"Oh, dear me!" cried Toodle. "I wonder why I feel so badly?"
Then the bird, looking down, and seeing how sad Toodle was, chirped once or twice and said:
"Oh, excuse me, Toodle, I did not mean to make you feel so badly. Wait, I will sing a different kind of song."
Then the bird sang about how nice it is in winter, with no mosquitoes to bite you, and how lovely the snow looks as it sifts down, and what jolly fun it is to go sleigh riding and skating, and how much fun it is to make snow men, and then how, in the middle of the night, Santa Claus comes riding over the housetops with his reindeer and their jingling bells—and all that, until Toodle cried out: