TOTO,
THE BUSTLING BEAVER
CHAPTER I
TOTO HELPS MILLIE
“Toto! Toto! Where are you?”
There was no answer to this call, which Mrs. Beaver, the mother of Toto, sounded as she climbed up on the ice and looked around for her little boy. Mrs. Beaver sat on her broad, flat tail, which really made quite a good seat, and with her sharp eyes she looked up and down Winding River for a sight of Toto. Then she called again, in beaver animal language of course:
“Toto! Toto! Come home this minute! You’ve been out on the ice long enough! And goodness knows we’ve had plenty of ice and snow this winter,” went on Mrs. Beaver, and she kept on looking up and down the frozen river. “I’ll be glad when spring comes so we beavers can gnaw down trees, eat the soft bark, and make dams for our houses,” she added.
But though she called as loudly as she could, and looked sharply up and down the river, which was covered with a sheet of smooth ice, Mrs. Beaver could see nothing of her little boy, Toto.
“What’s the matter?” asked an old gentleman beaver, who came along just then. “Has Toto run away?”
“I don’t know that I’d call it exactly running away, Mr. Cuppy,” answered Mrs. Beaver. “I said he could go out of the house and play on the ice a little while, but I told him to come back and get his willow bark lunch. But he hasn’t come, so I walked out to call him.”
“And he doesn’t answer,” said Mr. Cuppy, the old beaver gentleman, with a laugh—of course he laughed animal fashion, and not as you do. “I guess Toto is off playing tag, or something like that, on the ice with the other beaver boys,” added Mr. Cuppy. “I’m going down the river to call on some friends of mine. If I see Toto I’ll tell him you want him.”