"Nope!" said the little beaver girl, laughing. "I can't tell you until it's ready, anyhow, and now I must go to the store to get some—"
"Look out, Crackie!" exclaimed Mrs. Flat-tail, "or you'll tell your secret before you know it."
"Oh, then I'm going to hurry right away," said Crackie, "and you boys had better go to school, or you'll be late, won't they, mamma?"
"I guess so," answered Mrs. Flat-tail. "Run along Toodle and Noodle."
The two beaver boys looked at their little sister, who was named Crackie because she so often dropped things and cracked them—such things as cups and saucers and once in a while she'd drop her doll. But then this was a rubber baby, and it did not so much matter, for they can't crack until they get very old, and Crackie's rubber doll was quite young.
"I wonder what it was Crackie didn't want mamma to tell us?" spoke Toodle as he got his books ready to go to school.
"I don't know," answered his brother Noodle, "but we'll find out when we come home from our lessons."
"That's what we will," answered Toodle. "But come on now. We don't want to be late the way we were the other day when we helped Billie Bushytail move."
"No indeed!" said Noodle.
So off the beaver boys swam to school. They swam instead of walking, you know, because they lived in a house that was in the middle of a pond of water, and the only way they could get to shore was by swimming.