"No, I am!" said his brother. "You might eat some on the way home."
"Huh! You mean you would yourself," cried Noodle.
"Well," said their mamma, "I'll give you a basket with a water-proof rubber cloth on it, so you can dive down under the water with the things in it if you have to, and then you won't get them wet. So you may each carry half the basket with the cocoanut in it."
Toodle and Noodle thought this a good plan, and soon they were swimming on toward the store, which was kept by a nice old water rat, and the store was in an old rowboat that no one wanted any more. Mr. Rat had stuffed up the holes in it with cheese, and it did very well for a grocery.
There were two troubles with it, however. One was that often Mr. Rat got hungry and then he would graw some of the cheese out of the holes. That would make the boat leak, and the grocery store got wet. The other trouble, which was almost quite as bad, was that the boat would float away all over the beaver pond, and when you started out to find it you could never tell just where it was going to be, whether at one end of the pond or the other. So going to the store was not as easy as might seem, but still no one minded much.
But this time Noodle and Toodle were quite lucky. They soon found the floating boat store, and bought what their mamma had sent them for, putting the things in the basket and covering them up with the water-proof cloth so as to keep them dry.
"Now let's see how quickly we can go home," said Noodle.
"All right," agreed Toodle. "The sooner we get home the quicker mamma can bake the cake and—" Then he stopped and laughed. So did Noodle.
"I know what you're thinking of," said Toodle, blinking his eyes.
"What?" asked Noodle.