[Everybody in the beaver colony had work to do.]
Now that it was not needful to make the dam bigger, the beavers turned to other work. Some of the canals they had dug had become filled up at a time when there was too much rain and the banks had caved in. Some of the beavers began to clear out these canals. Others mended holes in the dam, and still others cut down, and brought to the pond, tender branches of trees on which grew soft bark for the small beaver children to eat.
[Everybody in the beaver colony had work to do.] There was not a lazy one among them, and Toto and Sniffy worked as hard as any. They had time to play, too, and I’ll tell you about that in another chapter or two. Just now I want to speak about another wonderful adventure that happened to Toto.
The little beaver boy was growing larger now. He was quite strong for his size, and he was growing wiser every day. Often he went off in the woods alone to hunt for tender bark, or perhaps for some berries he liked to eat.
One day Toto was walking along near a canal he had helped to dig. He was thinking of Don, and wishing he might meet the nice dog again, and tell him about the tramps being driven away. And Toto was also thinking of the little girl with the red mittens, whose skate had come off on the ice.
Then, as Toto stepped from the woods into a little clearing, or place where no trees grew, he saw something big—bigger than a thousand beaver houses made into one.
“I wonder what that is?” thought Toto. “It looks something like the shack the tramps had in the woods, but it is much nicer. I wonder if it is a house?”
And then as Toto, hidden behind a bush, watched, he saw a little girl and an old lady come out of the house (for such it was) and walk away through the woods on a path.