But something else happened. I guess it was worse than a fox, for, all of a sudden, when it was all dark and quiet, and the beavers were asleep, Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all, awakened, and cried out:
"Fire! Fire! Fire! I smell smoke. The house is on fire!"
That woke everybody else up, of course, and such a running around as there was! Surely enough the beaver house—that is, the dry top part that was out of water—was on fire, and it smelled like firecrackers, too. You know how they smell.
"Oh, dear!" cried Mr. Flat-tail. "That's how it happened. Some of the fire-cracker sparks got under the roof, and they glowed and smoked until they have set fire to our house. Oh boys!"
Of course Noodle and Toodle felt very badly about this, even though they had not meant to do it.
"Come, hurry out everybody!" cried Grandpa Whackum, and he helped Mrs. Flat-tail and little Crackie to get out. The fire was quite hot now, and a lot of the other beavers woke up.
"Call the fire engines!" some one cried.
"No—don't do that!" suddenly shouted Toodle. "I have a little fire engine of my own. My water-pistol! I'll put out the fire with that." He had taken it with him when he rushed from the burning house, and now he began to squirt the water on the blaze—the water in his pistol. My how Toodle did squirt his water-pistol! And in a few minutes the fire was out, the house was not burned much and the beavers could go back in it.
