"Oh, ho! No, you're not!" cried little Crackie, up on top of the mud-hill, and with that she came sliding down so fast that she suddenly hit that alligator right on the end of his nose, and that made tears come into his eyes, and whenever that happens to a skillery-scalery alligator he has to go right away to the dentist. It was that way with this one, and, as soon as Crackie bumped him, he dropped Toodle and Noodle, letting them go, and away the bad creature swam to have a tooth pulled out, which served him right, I think.
So that's how Crackie saved Toodle and Noodle by sliding down the mud-hill and bumping the alligator. Then the beaver children had a lot more fun in the water and the alligator didn't bother them any more that day. And in the story after this, if the merry-go-round doesn't dance a jig on the roof, and wake up the little mouse in the pantry, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle going to school.
[STORY X]
TOODLE AND NOODLE AT SCHOOL
"Hark! What's that?" cried Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, as he rolled over in his bed of clean, white pine-splinters one morning. "Did you hear that, Noodle?"
"Indeed I did," answered the other beaver boy. "Listen, Toodle."
They both listened, and they heard a bell ringing off in the distance:
"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!"
"Fire!" cried Noodle. "It's a fire. Let's get up and—"