Binney was not used to being addressed in this rude way, for beavers are usually very polite to each other, and at first he did not know what to reply.
"Can't you speak?" said the newcomer. "Do you live in the town, hey?"
"Yes," said Binney, finding his voice at last; "I was sent out here for some birch twigs."
The stranger began to laugh in a very rude way. "O, sent for twigs, were you! If I were a smart young fellow like you, I would be above being sent here and there, and working like a slave for all the town. I would take to the woods; and live by myself, and for myself! That's what I would do."
"But my mother says the wood-beavers often go cold and hungry, and that no decent beaver would speak to them," said Binney.
"What's that you say?" said the stranger, turning fiercely upon Binney. "Do you know, young one, I have a great mind to bite your head off? How dare you come here and be saucy to me?"
Binney was much alarmed, for the stranger looked very big and savage.
"Please, sir, I did not mean to be saucy," he said, humbly. "I did not know that you were a wood-beaver."
"You are a fool!" said the wood-beaver roughly. "The wood-beavers are much better off than such poor sneaks as you. I would not go into their town—no, not to have the whole of it. But you dare not say your life is your own, you are so afraid of your ma-a!", and he drawled out the word, and laughed in a very disagreeable manner.
Binney felt very much vexed, and so he ought to have been; but it was not in the right way. Instead of being angry at the wood-beaver for speaking so disrespectfully of his kind friends, he was vexed to think he should be laughed at, and that the wood-beaver should suppose he was afraid to do wrong.