Chapter 2

"Mrs. Bear had a birthday on Wednesday. An enjoyable time was had by all--except the pig."

"Pig?" Brownie Beaver asked. "What pig?"

"The pig they ate," said Mr. Crow. And he went right on talking. "On Thursday Mr. Woodchuck went to visit his cousins in the West. Mrs. Woodchuck is worried."

"What's she worried about?" Brownie inquired.

"She's afraid he's coming back again," Mr. Crow explained.

"I _have_ heard he was lazy," Brownie said. "What happened on Friday?"

"Tommy Fox made a visit. But he didn't have a good time at all," Mr. Crow reported, "and he left faster than he came."

Brownie Beaver wanted to know where Tommy Fox made his visit.

"At Farmer Green's hen-house," Mr. Crow explained.

"Why did he hurry away?" Brownie asked.

"Old dog Spot chased him," Mr. Crow replied. "But you mustn't ask questions," he complained. "You can't ask questions of a newspaper, you know."

"Well--what happened on Saturday?"

"There you go again!" cried Mr. Crow. "Another question! I declare, I don't believe you ever took a newspaper before--did you?"

Brownie Beaver admitted that he never had.

"Then--" said Mr. Crow--"then don't interrupt me again, please! I'll tell you all the news I've brought. And when I've finished I'll stop being a newspaper and be myself for a while. And then we can talk. But not before!" he insisted.

Brownie Beaver nodded his head. He was afraid that if he said another word Mr. Crow would grow angry and fly away without telling him any more news.

"On Saturday--this morning, to be exact"--said Mr. Crow, "there came near being a bad accident. Jimmy Rabbit almost cut off Frisky Squirrel's tail."

Mr. Crow paused and looked at Brownie Beaver out of the corner of his eye. He knew that Brownie would want to know what prevented the accident. But he was in no hurry to tell him.

For a few moments Brownie waited to hear the rest. But a few moments was more than he could endure.

"Why didn't Jimmy cut off his tail?" Brownie asked eagerly.

"There!" said Mr. Crow. "You've done just as I told you not to. So I shall not tell you the rest until next Saturday.... You see, you have a few things to learn about taking a newspaper." And 'he would give Brownie no more news that day. To be sure, he was willing to talk--but only about things that had happened where Brownie Beaver lived.

VIII

MR. CROW IS UPSET

Brownie Beaver couldn't help feeling that Mr. Crow had not treated him very well, because Mr. Crow hadn't told him all the news about Frisky Squirrel's tail. He thought that maybe there were things about a newspaper that even Mr. Crow didn't know.

Another week had passed. Brownie knew that it had, because since Mr. Crow's last call he had cut a notch in a stick each day. And there were now seven of them.

Late Saturday afternoon Mr. Crow came back again. He lighted on top of Brownie's house and called "Paper!" down the chimney, just as he had a week before.

Brownie Beaver came swimming up once more.

"Look here!" he said to Mr. Crow. "I don't believe yon know much about being a newspaper, do you?"

That surprised Mr. Crow.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"A newspaper--" said Brownie Beaver--"a newspaper is always left on, a person's doorstep. I've talked with a good many people and not one of them ever heard of a paper being left on the roof."

Mr. Crow's face seemed to grow blacker than ever, he was so angry.

"How can anybody leave a newspaper on your doorstep, when the step's under water?" he growled.

Brownie Beaver did not answer that question, for he had something else to say to Mr. Crow.

"I've talked with a good many people," he said once more, "and not one of them ever heard of such rudeness as _shouting down a person's chimney_. If there was anybody asleep in the house, it would certainly wake him; and if a person had a fire in his house, shouting down the chimney might put it out."

Mr. Crow looked rather foolish.

"I'll try to think of some way of leaving your newspaper that will suit us both," he said. Then he _hemmed_ and began to tell Brownie the week's news.

"On Sunday," said Mr. Crow, "there was a freshet."

"I knew that before you did," said Brownie Beaver.

Mr. Crow looked disappointed.

"How?" he asked.

"Why, I live further up the river than you," said Brownie Beaver. "And since freshets always come _down_ a river, this one didn't reach you till after it had passed me."

Something made Mr. Crow peevish.

"I don't believe you'd care to hear any more of my news," he said. "You appear to know it already. Perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell me the sort of news you prefer to hear."

"Certainly!" Brownie Beaver replied. "Now, there's the weather! I've talked with a good many people and they all say that a good newspaper ought to tell the weather for the next day."

Mr. Crow cocked an eye up at the sky.

"To-morrow will be fair," he said.

"I'm told that a good newspaper ought to tell a few jokes," Brownie Beaver continued.

But Mr. Crow sneered openly at that. "I'm a _newspaper_--not a _jest-book_," he announced.

"Then you refuse to tell any jokes, do you?" Brownie Beaver asked him.

"I certainly do!" Mr. Crow cried indignantly.

"Very well!" Brownie said. "I see I'll have to take some other newspaper, though I must say I hate to change--after taking this one so long."

"I hope you'll find one to suit you," Mr. Crow said in a cross voice. And he flew away without another word. He was terribly upset. You see, he had enjoyed being a newspaper, because it gave him an excuse for asking people the most inquisitive questions. He had intended all that week to ask Aunt Polly Woodchuck whether she wore a wig. But he hadn't been able to find her at home. And now it was too late--for Mr. Crow was a newspaper no longer.

As for Brownie Beaver, he succeeded in getting Jasper Jay to be his newspaper. Though Jasper told him many jokes, Brownie found that he could not depend upon Jasper's news. And as a matter of fact, Jasper made up most of it himself. He claimed that the _newest news_ was the best.

"That's why I invent it myself, right on the spot," he explained.

IX

THE SIGN ON THE TREE

On one of Brownie Beaver's long excursions down the stream he came upon a tree to which a sign was nailed. Now, Brownie had never learned to read. But he had heard that Uncle Jerry Chuck could tell what a sign said. So Brownie asked a pleasant young fellow named Frisky Squirrel if he would mind asking Uncle Jerry to come over to Swift River on a matter of important business.

When Uncle Jerry Chuck appeared, Brownie Beaver said he was glad to see him and that Uncle Jerry was looking very well.

"I've sent for you," said Brownie, "because I wanted you to see this sign. I can tell by the tracks under the tree that the sign was put up only to-day. And I thought you ought to know about it at once, Uncle Jerry."

As soon as he heard that, Uncle Jerry Chuck stepped close to the tree and began to read the sign.

Now, there was something about Uncle Jerry's reading that Brownie Beaver had heard. People had told him that Uncle Jerry Chuck couldn't tell what a sign said unless he read it _aloud_. That was why Brownie Beaver had sent for him, for Brownie knew Uncle Jerry well enough to guess that if anybody _asked_ Uncle Jerry to read the sign, Uncle Jerry would insist on being paid for his trouble.

But now Uncle Jerry was going to read the sign for himself. And Brownie Beaver moved up beside him, to hear what he said.

The sign looked like this:

NO HUNTING

OR FISHING

ALOUD

Uncle Jerry repeated the words in a sing-song tone.

"I don't think much of that," he said. "It's bad enough to be hunted by people who make a noise, though you have _some_ chance of getting away then. But if they can't make a noise it will be much more dangerous for all of us forest-people."

If Tommy Fox hadn't happened to come along just then Uncle Jerry wouldn't have found out his mistake. But Tommy Fox soon set him right. As soon as he had talked a bit with Uncle Jerry he said:

"What the sign really means is that no hunting or fishing will be permitted. That last word should be 'allowed,' instead of 'aloud.' It's spelled wrong," he explained.

"That's better!" Uncle Jerry cried. "Now there'll be no more hunting in the neighborhood and we'll all be quite safe.... Farmer Green is kinder than I supposed."

When Brownie Beaver heard that, he said good-by and started home at once to tell the good news to all his friends. He had leaped into the river and was swimming up-stream rapidly when Uncle Jerry called to him to stop.

"There's something I want to say," Uncle Jerry shouted. "I think you ought to pay me for reading the sign."

But Brownie Beaver shook his head.

"I didn't ask you to read the sign for me," he declared. "You read it for _yourself_, Uncle Jerry. And besides, you didn't know what it meant until Tommy Fox came along and told you.... If you want to know what I think, I'll tell you. I think you ought to pay Tommy Fox something."

Uncle Jerry at once began to look worried. He said nothing more, but plunged out of sight into some bushes, as if he were afraid Tommy Fox might come back and find him.

X

A HOLIDAY

There was great rejoicing in the little village in the pond when Brownie Beaver returned with the good news that there would be no more hunting and fishing. And when old Grandaddy Beaver said that everybody ought to take a holiday to celebrate the occasion, all the villagers said it was a fine idea.

So they stopped working, for once, and began to plan the celebration. They thought that there ought to be swimming races and tree-felling contests. And Brownie Beaver said that after the holiday was over he would suggest that someone be chosen to go down and thank Farmer Green for putting the notice on the tree.

The whole village agreed to Brownie's proposal and they voted to see who should be sent. Brownie Beaver himself passed his hat around to take up the votes. And it was quickly found that every vote was for Brownie Beaver. He had even voted for himself. But no one seemed to care about that.

Then the swimming races began. There was a race under water, a race with heads out of water--and another in which each person who took part had to stay beneath the surface as long as he could.

That last race caused some trouble. A young scamp called Slippery Sam won it. And many people thought that he had swum up inside his house, where he could get air, without being seen. But no one could prove it; so he won the race, just the same.

Next came the tree-felling contest. There were six, including Brownie Beaver, that took part in it. Grandaddy Beaver had picked out six trees of exactly the same size. Each person in the contest had to try to bring his tree to the ground first. And that caused some trouble, too, because some claimed that their trees were of harder wood than others--and more difficult to gnaw--while others complained that the bark of their trees tasted very bitter, and of course that made their task unpleasant.

Those six trees, falling one after another, made such a racket that old Mr. Crow heard the noise miles away and flew over to see what was happening.

After everybody crept out of his hiding-place some time afterward (everyone had to hide for a while, you know), there was Mr. Crow sitting upon one of the fallen trees.

"What's going on?" he inquired. "You're not going to cut down the whole forest, I hope."

Then they told him about the celebration. And Mr. Crow began to laugh.

"What are you going to do next?" he asked.

"We're a-going to send Brownie Beaver over to Pleasant Valley to thank Farmer Green for his kindness in putting an end to hunting and fishing," said old Grandaddy Beaver. "And he's a-going to start right away."

Mr. Crow looked around. And there was Brownie Beaver, with a lunch-basket in his hand, all ready to begin his long journey.

"Say good-by to him then," said Mr. Crow, "for you'll never see him again."

"What do you mean?" Grandaddy Beaver asked. And as for Brownie--he was so frightened that he dropped his basket right in the water.

"I mean----" said Mr. Crow--"I mean that it's a very dangerous errand. You don't seem to have understood that sign. In the first place, it was not Farmer Green, but his son Johnnie, who nailed It to the tree."

"Ah!" Brownie Beaver cried. "_That_ is why one of the words was misspelled!"

"No doubt!" Mr. Crow remarked. As a matter of fact, not being able to read he hadn't known about the word that was spelled wrong. "In the second place," he continued, "the sign doesn't mean that hunting and fishing are to be stopped. It means that no one but Johnnie Green is going to hunt and fish in this neighborhood. He wants all the hunting and fishing for himself. That's why he put up that sign. And instead of hunting and fishing being stopped, I should say that they were going to begin to be more dangerous than ever.... They tell me," he added, "that Johnnie Green had a new gun on this birthday."

Brownie Beaver said at once that he was not going on the errand of thanks.

"I resign," he said, "and anyone that wants to go in my place is welcome to do so."

But nobody cared to go. And the whole village seemed greatly disappointed, until Grandaddy Beaver made a short speech.

"We've all had a good holiday, anyhow," he said. "And I should say that was something to be thankful for."

XI

BAD NEWS

"Have you heard the news?" Tired Tim asked Brownie Beaver one day. "There's going to be a cyclone."

"A cyclone?" Brownie exclaimed. "What's that? I never heard of one."

"It's a big storm, with a terrible wind," Tired Tim explained. "The wind will blow so hard that it will snap off big trees."

"Good!" Brownie Beaver cried. "Then I won't have to cut down any more trees in order to reach the tender bark that grows in their tops."

Tired Tim laughed. "You won't think it's very 'good,'" he said, "when the cyclone strikes the village."

"Why not?" Brownie inquired.

"Because--" said Tired Tim--"because the wind will blow every house away. It will snatch up the sticks of which the houses are built and carry them over the top of Blue Mountain. Then I guess you'll wish you had taken my advice and not built that new house of yours.

"_I_ shall be safe enough," the lazy rascal continued. "All I'll have to do will be to crawl inside my house in the bank; for the wind can't very well blow the ground away."

Brownie Beaver thought that Tired Tim was just trying to scare him.

"I don't believe there's going to be any such thing!" he exclaimed.

"Don't you?" Tim grinned. "You just go and ask Grandaddy Beaver. He's the one that says there's going to be a cyclone."

At that Brownie Beaver stopped working and hurried off to find old Grandaddy Beaver. And to his great dismay, Grandaddy said that what Tired Tim had told him was the truth.

"It's a-coming!" Grandaddy Beaver declared. "I saw one once before in these parts, years before anybody else in this village was born. And when I see a cyclone a-coming I can generally tell it a long way off."

"When is it going to get here?" Brownie asked in a quavering voice.

"Next Tuesday!" Grandaddy replied.

"What makes you think it's coming?"

"Well--everything looks just the way it did before the last cyclone," Grandaddy Beaver explained, as he took a mouthful of willow bark. "The moon looks just the same and the sun looks just the same. I had a twinge of rheumatics in my left shoulder yesterday; and to-day the pain's in my right. It was exactly that way before the last cyclone."

Brownie Beaver did not doubt that the old gentleman knew what he was talking about. He remembered that Grandaddy Beaver had warned everyone there was going to be a freshet. And though people had laughed at the old chap, the freshet had come.

Sadly worried, Brownie went and called on all his neighbors and asked them what they were going to do. And to his surprise he found that they were laughing at Grandaddy once more. They seemed to have forgotten about the freshet.

But Brownie Beaver could not forget that dreadful night. And now he tried to think of some way to keep his new house from being blown away by the great wind, which Grandaddy Beaver said was coming on Tuesday without fail.

XII

GRANDADDY BEAVER THINKS

It was on a Friday that Brownie Beaver first heard the cyclone was coming. And after making sure that Grandaddy Beaver knew what he was talking about when he said the great wind would sweep down upon the village on the following Tuesday, Brownie spent a good deal of time wondering what he had better do.

He wanted to save his house from being blown over the top of Blue Mountain. And he wanted to save himself from being carried along at the same time.

Before Friday was gone Brownie Beaver began to heap more mud and sticks upon his house, to make it stronger. And when Tired Tim came swimming past the lazy scamp laughed harder than ever.

"I see you're afraid of the cyclone," he called. "But what you're doing won't help you any. The wind will blow away those sticks easily enough.... What you ought to do is to dig a house like mine in the bank. Then you won't have to worry about any cyclone."

So Brownie set to work and made him a house like Tired Tim's. On Monday he had finished it. But he didn't like his new home at all.

"It's no better than a rat's hole," he said. "My family have never lived in such a place and I'm not used to it. I prefer my house that's built of sticks and mud. And I'm going to see if there isn't some way I can make it safe."

So Brownie went to Grandaddy Beaver again and asked him what he ought to do.

The old gentleman said he would try to think of a plan to save Brownie's house.

"I wish you would hurry," Brownie urged him. "To-day is Monday; and tomorrow the cyclone will be here.... What are you going to do to your own house, Grandaddy?"

"My house----" said Grandaddy Beaver--"my house is very old. It has had mud and sticks piled upon it every season for over a hundred years. You can see for yourself that it's much bigger than yours. And I reckon it's strong enough to stay where it is, no matter how hard the wind blows. But your house is different.... Let me think a minute!" the old gentleman said.

Brownie waited in silence while the old gentleman thought, with his eyes shut tight. Brownie watched him for a long time. Once or twice he thought he heard something that sounded like a snore. But he knew it couldn't be that--it was only the thoughts trying to get inside Grandaddy's head.

At last Grandaddy sat up with a start.

"Have you thought of something?" Brownie inquired.

"What's that?" Grandaddy asked. "Oh, yes! I've a good idea," he said. "What you must do is to tie your house so the wind can't blow it away."

Brownie thanked him. And he went away feeling quite happy again--until he reached home and started to follow Grandaddy's advice. Then he saw that he had forgotten something. He hadn't anything with which to tie his house and make it safe from the cyclone.

XIII

A LUCKY FIND

Brownie Beaver almost wished he hadn't spent so much time waiting for Grandaddy to tell him to tie down his house so it wouldn't be carried away by the big wind on the following day. With no rope--or anything else--to tie the house with, Brownie could not see that Grandaddy's advice was of any use to him.

Anyhow, he was glad he had done as Tired Tim had suggested and dug a house in the bank, where he could hide until the storm passed. But he felt sad at the thought of losing his comfortable home. And since he could hardly bear to look at it and imagine how dreadful it would be to have it blown over the top of Blue Mountain into Pleasant Valley, Brownie went for a stroll through the woods to try to forget his trouble.

He found himself at last in a clearing, where loggers had been at work. They had chopped down many trees. And the sight made Brownie Beaver angry.

"This is an outrage!" he cried aloud. "I'd like to know who has been stealing our trees. I suppose it's Farmer Green; for they say he's always up to such tricks." He took a good look around. And then he turned to go back to the village and tell what he had discovered.

Just as he turned he tripped on something. And something clinked beneath his feet. It didn't sound like a stone. So Brownie Beaver looked down to see what was there.

Now, in his anger he had quite forgotten the great storm. But as he saw what had tripped him he remembered it again. But he was no longer worried.

"Hurrah!" Brownie cried. "Here's just what I need!" And then he hurried back home again--but not to tell about the trees that had been stolen. He hastened home to _chain down his house_ and save it from the great wind. For Brownie Beaver had found a chain, which the loggers had used to haul the logs out of the woods, and had forgotten.

It was almost dark when Brownie reached his house in the village in the pond. He was never a very good walker. And dragging that heavy chain behind him through the forest only made him slower than ever. Sometimes the chain caught on a bush and tripped him. But Brownie was so pleased with his find that he only laughed whenever he fell, for he was not hurt.

The whole village gathered round his house to watch him while he tied the chain on it and anchored the ends of the chain to the bottom of the pond with a big stone.

"Why do you do that?" people asked.

"He's afraid of the cyclone to-morrow," Tired Tim piped up, without waiting for Brownie to answer. "You know, old Grandaddy Beaver says that there's going to be a great wind. This young feller----" said Tim--"he's already dug a house in the bank near mine--ha! ha! He thinks Grandaddy knows. But I say that Grandaddy Beaver is a--a fine, noble, old gentleman," Tired Tim stammered. He had happened to glance around while he was talking; and to his surprise there was Grandaddy floating in the water close behind him.

"He certainly is," everybody agreed. "But we hope he's mistaken about the great wind."

When Tuesday came--which was the very next day--Brownie Beaver crept into his tunnel in the bank at sunrise. And he never came outside again until the sun had set.

When he saw that his house was still there, in the middle of the pond, he shouted with joy.

"Hurrah!" he cried. "The chain saved my house!" Then he noticed that all the other houses were still there, too. "How's this?" he asked Tired Tim, who stood on the bank beside him. "Did my chain save the whole village?"

Tired Tim grinned--for he was not too lazy to do that.

"There wasn't any cyclone," he said. "There wasn't a breath of wind all day. And old Grandaddy Beaver is so upset that he's gone to bed and won't talk with anybody."

XIV

WAS IT A GUN?

Everybody in the village where Brownie Beaver lived was very much upset. Most people were angry, too. And no doubt it was natural that they should feel that way, because while they were taking their midday naps a man had come and paddled about their village in a boat.

Brownie Beaver was the first to hear him and he quickly spread the alarm. There was a great scurrying as all the villagers stole out of their houses and swam away under water to hide in holes in the bank of the pond and in other places they knew.

Toward night, when they all came back again, the man had gone. But Brownie and his neighbors were still angry. You must remember that their rest had been disturbed and they were feeling somewhat sleepy.

So far as they could see, the man had done no damage either to their houses or to the dam. But people felt a bit uneasy just the same, until old Grandaddy Beaver looked all around and reported that the man had set no traps. You see, Grandaddy knew a great deal about traps. He had been caught in one when he was young. Luckily, he managed to get away; and he learned a few things that he never forgot.