"Oh, I've got time enough," spoke the other little beaver boy. "I just want to see if my birch bark boat will sail."
"Well, I'm going, anyway," said Toodle, and away he started.
"I wish I could go to school," spoke Crackie, sort of sadly like. "I don't like to stay home alone when you boys go away to your lessons."
"Never mind," whispered Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all. "Some day, Crackie, you shall go to school, and you'll learn as much as Toodle and Noodle," and then the old gentleman animal gave Crackie a whole ice cream cone for herself, and she let it fall on a stone and broke it. That's why she was called Crackie—she was always dropping things and cracking or breaking them.
But it didn't hurt the ice cream cone much, for only the sharp point was cracked off, and the little beaver girl didn't like that part, anyhow. None of the ice cream was spilled, I'm glad to say.
So Toodle started off to school, and as he swam away he looked back and called to his brother: "You'll be late, Noodle."
"Oh, I guess not," answered Noodle. "I'm coming right along now."
Well, Noodle finished making his birch bark boat, and it sailed very nicely, but there was not enough wind for the beaver boy to sail to school in it, so he thought he had better swim. He was just starting off, having said good-by to his sister Crackie, and he was wondering if he knew his spelling lesson, when Mrs. Flat-tail, the beaver lady, called out:
"Oh, I say, Noodle, do you think you'd have time to swim over to Mrs. Wibblewobble's, the duck lady, and borrow a cupful of salt for me? I want to make a sweet-grass pudding and I need a little salt for it."
"Of course, I'll go, mamma," said Noodle. "I have time enough, for I'll swim very fast. But I thought you put sugar in pudding, instead of salt."