"When your father goes to heaven," said Dallas, "I believe he'll have all his pet animals sitting round him."
Cassowary smiled in her sober way. "You're like mother. She says as soon as Saint Peter lets dear Dad through the pearly gates, a little junco will fly up and say, 'I've been waiting for you. Here are my young ones with me that you saved from the bad squirrels. I love you and am going to keep near you,' and a squirrel will say, 'You gave me nuts and kept me from eating the little birds,' and a fox will say, 'You caught me in a merciful trap that did not wound my tender paw but it killed me at once and sent me to a place where I learned how to be a better fox.' Then a deer will say, 'You found me in the woods alone where a cruel sportsman had taken my mother, and you brought me up and petted me,' and a nice black bear with a brown muzzle will say, 'Give us a paw, old man, you shot me through the brain, you didn't let me stagger away to die by inches.'"
Dallas was delighted with this talk, and drew me up so that I stood quite still.
"Oh! get on, get on, you funny boy," said Cassowary; "but whist! Here we are at the dam. See Daddy Beaver beyond that point sticking out in the river? That's his dam. Hasn't he arranged the saplings and brushwood nicely? There he comes downstream trailing a baby tree. Can you see him? Mrs. Beaver is just selecting a billet of wood from that heap for afternoon tea, or is she going to take it down below to her water pantry?"
My young master was overjoyed. I don't think he had ever seen beavers before. He stood up, and with shining eyes fixed on the river listened breathlessly to Cassowary.
The beavers did not hear us. The road here was grassy and the cart had slipped along so noiselessly that it was some minutes before the beaver's roving eye caught sight of the alarming spectacle of a pony and a cart and two young persons. Then didn't he give the river a thwack with his broad tail as a signal to his wife, and down they both went.
"Mr. Beaver! Mr. Beaver!" called Cassowary, "it's the Good Man's daughter. I wouldn't hurt you for a million dollars. I wouldn't wear a beaver skin coat. Come back and get your sapling. It's a dandy one, your favorite poplar, and it's floating down stream."
"He can't hear you," said Dallas.
She wagged her black head. "The fishes will tell him. You know fishes weren't always fishes."