“Who is Blackie?” asked the beaver boy. “Is he another dog?”
“No, she’s a cat!” explained Don, with a laugh. “She’s quite a friend of mine. She has a story all to herself in a book, and I have one, too. I don’t suppose you were ever in a book, were you, Toto?”
“Did you say a brook?” asked the beaver boy. “Of course I’ve been in a brook many a time. I even built a little dam across a brook once—I and my brother Sniffy.”
“Ho, I didn’t say brook—I said book,” cried Don. “Of course I don’t know much about such things myself, not being able to read. But a book is something with funny marks in it, and boys and girls like them very much.”
“Are they good to eat?” asked Toto.
“Oh, no,” answered Don, laughing.
“Then I don’t believe they can be very good!” said Toto, “and I don’t care to be in a book.”
But you see he is in one, whether he likes it or not, and some day he may be glad of it.
“Well, I must be going,” barked Don. “I want to see if I can find that camp where the tramps live. Tramps are no good. They come around the house where I live, near Blackie, the cat, and take our master’s things. If I see the tramps I’m going to bark at them and try to drive them away.”