"Oh, I don't know," answered Toodle as he looked at the stick to see if there was any more eating-bark on it, and, finding there was none, he threw it away. "I don't know," said Toodle again, "what would you like to do to have fun?"
"Let's go away in the woods," spoke Noodle, "and gnaw down some trees with our teeth, the way Grandpa Whackum showed us, and we can build a little cabin and play Indian."
"That would be fun," agreed Toodle, "only suppose a bad bear or an unpleasant wolf should get after us?"
"Then I would just blow on my whistle," said his brother, "and Grandpa Whackum, or maybe papa, or some of the big folks would hear it and come to save us. I say let's go off to the woods," and he blew his whistle quite loudly, so that Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all, who was mending a hole in the dam where the water was running away, Grandpa Whackum, as I say, came running up, banging his broad, flat tail on the ground, and asking:
"What's the matter, boys? Is some one trying to catch you? Are you in a trap?"
"Neither one, thank you kindly, Grandpa Whackum," said Noodle, speaking very politely, as he had been taught to do, "we are in no danger, and I was just blowing on my whistle to show Toodle how I could call for help if we went to the woods."
"I see," spoke the old gentleman beaver. "I heard the whistle, all right, but if you boys go off to the woods I could not get to you as soon as I did this time. So you want to be very careful if you do go."
"We will," promised Noodle. "Come on, Toodle. Let's go have some fun."
So the two little beaver boys jumped down from the big dam, and began swimming toward the woods some distance off. The beavers could swim in the water much better than they could waddle, or walk, on land, even if they did stand up on their hind legs. And they were much safer in the water, but of course they could not stay in it all the while.
On and on swam Noodle and Toodle, and sometimes the little beaver boys would see gold or silver fish in the water around them, and they'd stop for a minute and talk about how warm the pond was, and whether there would be a fishball game that day, and all things like that.