BINNEY was a young beaver, who lived with several brothers and sisters, and a great many aunts, uncles, and cousins, in a beautiful pond by a stream which empties into the Missouri a long way off to the north-west.
This was not a natural pond. Some years before, two beavers, whose house had been destroyed by the Indians, set out on a journey to found a new town. They travelled along at their leisure, living upon the tender bark of the low and cotton-wood shoots, which they found in great abundance, and looking for a home. They found no place to suit them for a great many days. One stream was too swift, another too slow; another was subject to great freshets, as was plainly shown by the heaps of driftwood which lay piled on the banks, and the great logs in the bed of the stream.
At last, however, after travelling till they were tired and almost discouraged, they came one morning to the banks of a large and clear brook. Willows and cotton-wood grew all around it, there were no signs of men anywhere about, and just in the shadiest, pleasantest place there was a long reach of still water.
"This will suit very nicely," said Mr. Beaver. "I have not seen such a pleasant place since we left home."
"No place can ever be to me like that old home," said Mrs. Beaver, sighing. "I do not feel any courage at all about beginning to build in this new, strange stream."
"O, you must not be downhearted," returned Mr. Beaver, cheerily. "We shall soon have a family about us again, and every thing will be as pleasant as before our misfortunes commenced. See how handily those young cotton-woods grow for our dam. We can never be at a loss for food here, as you know was sometimes the case in our old home. We ought to be thankful also that it is early spring instead of fall. We have all the summer before us in which to work, and I can see no reason why we should not have a very nice, pleasant home before winter comes upon us."
Mrs. Beaver sighed again, but she reflected that there is no use in crying for what cannot be helped; and as she really loved her husband, she did not wish to discourage him by fretting, so she put on a cheerful face, and set to work with a good will.
It was indeed needful to keep up a stout heart, for the two beavers had a deal of hard work before them. Their first care was to build up a dam to shut in the water and make a pond. They began operations by cutting down a great many young trees about as thick as a man's wrist. Then they cut off the branches, and stripped them of their bark, which they piled away in heaps for food in winter. With these trees and branches they built their dam, sticking the ends down into the mud at the bottom of the stream, weaving them firmly together with smaller sticks, long grass, and reeds, and plastering them neatly over with mud, so that the dam, when done, was quite water-tight. It was about ten feet wide at the bottom, and sloped to two feet at the top, and was so long as to go clear across the stream, and a good way up on either bank. All this was done at night, for beavers prefer to work at night, and sleep or play in the daytime.
You may perhaps wonder how the two beavers contrived to do so much work, but they knew beforehand just what they wished to accomplish, and they had tools well adapted to their uses. Their sharp teeth were their saws and axes, wherewith to cut down the trees, and strip them of their bark, while their paws and their broad, flat tails served for hoes and trowels, to dig up the mud, and spread it for mortar. *
* Some say the beavers never use their tails for trowels.