So off the old gentleman beaver went, with Toodle and Noodle frisking on ahead. Mr. Flat-tail, their papa, stayed home to plaster with mud a hole his wife had found on the roof of the house in the pond. It would never do to have a hole there, for a bad water rat might easily scratch it larger, and some night, when Toodle and Noodle were asleep he might sneak in and bite them. No, indeed!
As Grandpa Whackum and the two boys swam along the pond, and then went out on dry land to waddle for a short distance, Toodle suddenly exclaimed:
"Why, I know where this is!"
"Where?" asked his brother Noodle.
"It's the same place where I had my first lesson in cutting down a tree!" cried the little beaver boy. "That time I was caught under it, you know."
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Noodle. "Is that where we are going, Grandpa Whackum?"
"The very place," said the old beaver gentleman, as he kindly stopped to allow a toad that accidentally sat on his tail to hop off. "And, boys, we are going to dig a canal so we can float down through it, on the water that will run in, the very tree Toodle cut down. That tree is good to eat, Toodle, my boy," went on Grandpa Whackum, "and it will be very good this winter."
"Oh, fine!" cried Toodle, and he was very glad that he could be of some use to the other beavers, even if it was only in cutting down one tree for use as food.
"I wish I could cut down a tree!" exclaimed Noodle.
"Well, you can soon," promised his grandpa. "But now I need you both to help dig the canal. We will soon begin. Here is a little brook that runs into our pond. Now if we dig a sort of ditch from this brook to where Toodle's tree is, we can float it right to our house, and that's what we'll do."