So Uncle Wiggily, Sammie and the beavers began work. Quickly and silently they dug and dug and dug in the soft earth, piling the dirt to one side, and making a trench so that the rain water could run off into the brook. And soon the little pond that had formed around the tent of the camping boys had drained away.
"Now they will have no more trouble," said Uncle Wiggily as he and his friends, all wet and muddy, finished the trench. "We can go home."
Home they went, through the rain, to get something to eat and dry out. And in the morning, though it still rained, no water rose inside the boys' tent. And none came through the roof, for that was like an umbrella, the canvas cloth being stretched over the ridge-pole.
"Oh, look!" cried one boy, coming to the flap of the tent, as the front of the canvas house is called. "Someone has dug a ditch around our camp, and now we'll keep dry!"
"Why, it's a regular little canal!" exclaimed a second boy. "It wasn't there yesterday!"
"Who did it?" asked the other lads.
But none of them knew, and I hope you will not tell them, for I want to keep it a secret.
And when the rain stopped, the ground around the tent dried out very quickly because the proper ditch had been dug around it. And the camping boys put out on the flat stump many good things for the animal folk to eat. And the next time those boys went camping they knew enough to make a trench around their tent.
Now let me see; what shall we have next? Well, I think I shall tell you the story of Uncle Wiggily and the birthday cake—that is, I will if the snow-shovel doesn't make the coal-scuttle sneeze when they are playing tag down under the cellar steps.