"Fire! That's no fire!" said Toodle. "That's the school bell that's ringing, and we have to go to school today, Noodle, my boy. Don't you remember what Grandpa Whackum said to us?"
"Indeed I do," answered Noodle. "So this is the day we have to start school? I wonder if our little sister Crackie is coming?"
"I don't believe she is old enough," answered Toodle. "It would be fun if she could, though. But did you hear anything else besides the bell, Noodle?"
Then both the little beaver boys listened again, just as the telephone girl does when you talk to her, and they heard some one calling:
"Hi there, Noodle! Hi there, Toodle! Time to get up! You have to go to school today." It was their papa.
"All right!" called the two beaver boys very politely, as all animal children do. "We're coming."
Quickly they washed their faces and paws in the water of the beaver pond, and then they were ready for breakfast. They had water-lily pancakes with birch bark syrup on, and winter-green muffins with maple sugar, and their mamma, Mrs. Flat-tail, also put them up a nice lunch of watercress bread with willow bark jam in between the slices.
"I wish I could go to school," said Crackie, the little beaver girl baby, whom the two boys had found in a hollow stump one day. "I'd like to go and learn how to make mud pies."
"Some day you may, my dear," said Mrs. Flat-tail, as she hurried about the kitchen, making some nice warm ginger-root soup for Grandpa Whackum.
So Toodle and Noodle started for school. They were a little bit behind the other animal children, for the school had opened a week or so before this, but then the beaver boys had to practice their swimming, and gnawing and other lessons, which is what kept them home.