"A dam!" said Mackey. "What is a dam? I never heard of such a thing."
"We always built dams at home," said Binney. "Where I used to live there was such a big one—O! as long as this house, and almost as high as this room. Its use is to set back the water in the brook, and make a pond, in which we build our houses."
"Are you going to build a house now?" asked Mackey.
"Yes, under that high bureau. Don't you want to help me? When it is all done, we will sit in it and tell our own histories."
"O what fun," cried Mackey, and he set to work at once, for lemurs, like monkeys, are very fond of imitating what they see any one else do. So the two friends dragged together boots and slippers, and all the small things they could find, with which they filled up the spaces between the legs of the bureau, and thus made a very nice little house.
"Now we ought to have some hay to put into it," said Binney, "but I don't know where to find any."
Mackey cast his great keen eyes round the room till they fell upon a tall press full of clean linen, which had been accidentally left open.
"I know, I know!" cried Mackey, clapping his tiny hands in great glee. "I know where there is plenty of nice hay."
And with one jump, he was on the top shelf of the press, where he found a great quantity of clean sheets, tablecloths, napkins, and towels. These he threw down to Binney, who dragged them into the house which they had made, till it was half full of the nice clean linen. When it was all done, they lay down in the midst of the nest, and began telling their stories. Binney told Mackey about the dam and they pond, the deep woods and the meadows, the tame and good beavers in the town and the wild beavers in the woods; but as you have heard all that before, I shall not repeat it. Then Mackey told his own story, as follows:
"I was born a great many thousand miles from London, in the island of Madagascar. There is never any cold weather in that island. Water never freezes as it does here, and there is no snow nor sleet; but it rains a great deal in one part of the year. Almost the whole island is covered with thick, deep woods, in which grow all sorts of curious and beautiful things. There are many large vines which run from tree to tree for long distances, making the nicest bridges in the world for us lemurs to run upon. There are tall, many-colored canes, which shoot up fifty or sixty feet without a leaf, and as smooth as if they had been varnished. There are palm trees like great green plumes, which bear the cocoanuts they sell here; other palms which bear dates, and others still with large broad leaves as long as this room. There are beautiful plants with leaves like green lace, which grow under the water, and others which grow upon the branches of tall trees, and bear lovely, wax-like flowers.