Part 4

"Well, never mind, Crackie, my dear," said Mrs. Flat-tail. "You couldn't help it, I know. You didn't do it on purpose. Run along out with the boys and play."

"Yes, come on, Crackie!" cried Toodle. "We're going to have some fun!"

Say, I guess, I'd better begin telling about that sliding down hill without any snow on the ground pretty soon, had I not? or else I'll get to the end of this story without putting it in.

Well, anyhow, as the telephone girl says sometimes, Toodle and Noodle and Crackie, the three beaver children, swam out of the house in the pond and began looking for something so that they might have a good time.

They looked over toward where Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all, was showing another beaver gentleman, who had just gone to housekeeping, how to stop a leak in his roof. And the animal children saw their grandpa climb up on the roof with some plastermud in his paws to fix the hole, and then, when he had used up the plaster, they saw him slide down the roof for more, going splash! into the water.

"Say, that's what we can do to have some fun!" exclaimed Toodle.

"Do what?" asked Noodle.

"Slide down hill," answered Toodle.

"How can we slide down hill when there isn't any snow," asked Crackie, who was a very smart little beaver baby girl.

"I'll show you," said Toodle. "You know mud is very slippery, and the roofs of lots of our houses are made of mud. Grandpa Whackum just slid down one, sitting on his flat tail, and we can do the same."

"That's right," cried Noodle. "We'll find an old house, where no one lives any more, and we'll wet the roof by splashing water on it, and then we'll take turns sliding down into the pond. That will be jolly fun!"

Toodle thought so, too, and so did Crackie. She swam along with her brothers, carrying her rubber doll in one paw. The rubber doll didn't mind being wet, you know.

Well, finally the beaver children found a big house, that was rounding on top just like a hill, and no one lived in it. The roof was covered with dried mud, but with their tails Toodle and Noodle and Crackie soon splashed water on it and made it as slippery as the most slippy-ippy hill covered with snow or ice that you ever saw. For you know how sluppy-slippy wet mud is if you have ever fallen down in it when you were going to school. Or maybe your rubber has stuck in the slippery-sticky mud and come off. Mine did once, and I dropped my ice cream cone in a puddle of water, and the worst of it was I didn't have any more money to get another, either.

Well, finally the rounding, hilly top part of the roof of the beaver house was all wet and slippery mud, and Toodle and Noodle began to slide down it. They wanted to try it first before they let their little sister Crackie go on it, to be sure it was safe for her.

And it was all right, I'm glad to say, and when the beaver boys sat on their tails and gave themselves a little push away they went down the muddy hill, without any snow on it, almost as fast as a choo-choo train, or maybe even an automobile, for all I know. Think of that!

"Now may I try it?" asked Crackie.

"Yes, come along," said Toodle.

"We'll give you a good push!" said Noodle.

Crackie let her rubber doll swim in the water while she climbed up on top of the house-hill and got ready to slide down into the water. It was like shooting the chutes at Coney Island, you know.

"Splish-splash!" went Crackie into the water, and she laughed and shouted, it was such fun.

"She slides as well as we do, Noodle," said Toodle.

"Indeed she does!" said Noodle to Toodle.

Then the beaver children took more turns sliding down the muddy hill. Sometimes they slid separately, and often all three of them would go down together. Then Toodle got a long piece of birch bark for a sled, and they all sat on that, holding their tails up in the air, and down they went, whizzing along until they hit the water with a splash.

Oh, it was great fun!

Then, all of a sudden, when Toodle and Noodle had gone sliding down together, leaving Crackie standing alone on the top of the muddy hill, to come down after them, all of a sudden, up out of the water came the bad old skillery-scalery alligator, and before Toodle or Noodle knew what was happening the savage creature, with the double-jointed tail, had grabbed them both in his paws.

"Oh, let us go! Let us go!" cried Toodle.

"Yes, please let us go!" begged Noodle, and he tried to make his tail go "whack!" on the water, the way his grandpa had taught him to do to call for help. But the alligator held him too tightly, and Noodle couldn't move even his nose.

"Oh, will no one help us?" shouted Toodle.

"No, there is no one here to help you," barked the alligator, just like a dog. "I am going to take you off to my den!"

"Oh, ho! No, you're not!" cried little Crackie, up on top of the mud-hill, and with that she came sliding down so fast that she suddenly hit that alligator right on the end of his nose, and that made tears come into his eyes, and whenever that happens to a skillery-scalery alligator he has to go right away to the dentist. It was that way with this one, and, as soon as Crackie bumped him, he dropped Toodle and Noodle, letting them go, and away the bad creature swam to have a tooth pulled out, which served him right, I think.

So that's how Crackie saved Toodle and Noodle by sliding down the mud-hill and bumping the alligator. Then the beaver children had a lot more fun in the water and the alligator didn't bother them any more that day. And in the story after this, if the merry-go-round doesn't dance a jig on the roof, and wake up the little mouse in the pantry, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle going to school.

STORY X

TOODLE AND NOODLE AT SCHOOL

"Hark! What's that?" cried Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, as he rolled over in his bed of clean, white pine-splinters one morning. "Did you hear that, Noodle?"

"Indeed I did," answered the other beaver boy. "Listen, Toodle."

They both listened, and they heard a bell ringing off in the distance:

"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!"

"Fire!" cried Noodle. "It's a fire. Let's get up and--"

"Fire! That's no fire!" said Toodle. "That's the school bell that's ringing, and we have to go to school today, Noodle, my boy. Don't you remember what Grandpa Whackum said to us?"

"Indeed I do," answered Noodle. "So this is the day we have to start school? I wonder if our little sister Crackie is coming?"

"I don't believe she is old enough," answered Toodle. "It would be fun if she could, though. But did you hear anything else besides the bell, Noodle?"

Then both the little beaver boys listened again, just as the telephone girl does when you talk to her, and they heard some one calling:

"Hi there, Noodle! Hi there, Toodle! Time to get up! You have to go to school today." It was their papa.

"All right!" called the two beaver boys very politely, as all animal children do. "We're coming."

Quickly they washed their faces and paws in the water of the beaver pond, and then they were ready for breakfast. They had water-lily pancakes with birch bark syrup on, and winter-green muffins with maple sugar, and their mamma, Mrs. Flat-tail, also put them up a nice lunch of watercress bread with willow bark jam in between the slices.

"I wish I could go to school," said Crackie, the little beaver girl baby, whom the two boys had found in a hollow stump one day. "I'd like to go and learn how to make mud pies."

"Some day you may, my dear," said Mrs. Flat-tail, as she hurried about the kitchen, making some nice warm ginger-root soup for Grandpa Whackum.

So Toodle and Noodle started for school. They were a little bit behind the other animal children, for the school had opened a week or so before this, but then the beaver boys had to practice their swimming, and gnawing and other lessons, which is what kept them home.

But now they were going to school, and as they waddled along, wondering what sort of lessons they would have to recite, they met a number of their friends. Bully No-tail, the frog, was hopping on the path by the water, and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck, was swimming in the water, as were Toodle and Noodle. Overhead, also on his way to school, was Dickie Chipchip, the sparrow boy.

The school where Toodle and Noodle went was in an old boat that floated around the beaver pond, just like the grocery store that one of the animals kept. And the school-boat, not being tied fast anywhere, was never in the same place any two mornings. Sometimes it would be here, and sometimes it would be there.

And on that account the animal children were often late. They would start for the boat-school at the place where it had been the day before. But in the night the wind might have blown it far off, so by the time they found it the animals would be late for their lessons. But the old gentleman teacher, Mr. Water Rat, did not mind that much, and he never kept any of the children in for being late. Sometimes Woodie and Waddie Chuck, the groundhog boys, would be so late that they only got to school just as it was letting out for the day. That was jolly.

So, as I said, Toodle and Noodle started for school. On the way they had lots of fun with their animal friends, and once, when Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, was chasing Toodle, the beaver boy jumped into the water and swam a long way, so Sammie couldn't tag him.

But the school bell kept ringing and ringing, and finally Toodle and Noodle were at the old floating boat where they were to study their lessons. It had not drifted very far in the night, so no one was late this morning.

"Now, children, attention!" said old Mr. Water Rat, who kept the school. "We will first have a lesson in arithmetic, or number work.

"Toodle Flat-tail, you may tell me this. If you had a pear and your brother, Noodle, had two apples, how many would there be altogether?"

"Do you mean if we were very hungry?" asked Toodle, slowly like.

"Why, what has that to do with it?" asked the school teacher rat. "Two apples and one pear are always the same, whether you are hungry or not."

"Oh, no," said Toodle, as politely as he knew how. "For if Noodle and I were hungry there wouldn't be any left no matter how many pears or apples there were at first. We would eat them up, you see, teacher."

"I see," said the teacher. "That is very good. You may go up head, Toodle." So that is how Toodle got up to the head of his class the first day in school. Wasn't that good?

Well, then, the teacher asked Noodle a question. Said Professor Water Rat:

"If you had five pennies, and your mamma should give you ten pennies more, how many pennies would you have?"

"Not any," said Noodle, as politely as he knew how.

"Why not?" asked the teacher. "Do not five pennies and ten pennies make fifteen pennies?"

"Maybe," said Noodle; "but, please sir, if I had fifteen pennies I'd buy three ice cream cones--one for Toodle and one for my sister Crackie, and one for myself, so I would not have any pennies, you see."

"Very good," said the professor rat. "You may also go up head, Noodle." So Noodle did, and he and Toodle sat in the same seat. They were quite proud, too, at getting up head their first day in school. Not too proud, you know, but just proud enough.

Well, all of a sudden, as the animal children were studying away very quietly, a voice called:

"I want Toodle! I want Noodle!"

Everybody looked up surprised like. The two beaver boys were sort of scared, too.

"Oh, dear!" cried Noodle, and he looked for a window so he could jump out into the pond and swim away.

"It's a bear after us!" cried Toodle, jumping up.

The professor rat teacher got out his ruler to fight the bear, if he should come in, but instead, there walked into the school only little Crackie, the baby beaver girl. She had her rubber doll with her.

"I want Toodle and Noodle!" said Crackie. "I'm tired of staying home and playing all alone. Please teacher, can't you let them out of school and amuse me?"

Well, you should have heard the animal children laugh at that! The idea of a little girl beaver coming to get her brothers out of school to play with her! Did you ever hear of anything like that? I guess not!

Even Professor Rat had to laugh, and there was so much fun that no one could study.

"Can't Toodle and Noodle come home with me?" asked Crackie again.

"Well, pretty soon," said the teacher. "You just sit down here, Crackie, and make some pictures on the blackboard."

So Crackie came to school also, you see, though it was not intended, and pretty soon, when school was nearly out a bad old fox stuck his nose in the window, looking to see if he could grab Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl. But Crackie Flat-tail threw a piece of chalk at him, and the fox was glad to run off and not come back any more that week, fearing he was going to get a bad chalk-mark, you see.

So that's how Crackie did good by going to school to get her brothers. And when lessons were done she went out with them and had a good time. And on the next page, if the door knob doesn't turn over in its sleep and roll out of the window, I'll tell you about Crackie breaking her doll.

STORY XI

HOW CRACKIE BROKE HER DOLL

I may as well tell you at the very beginning, for you would find it out sooner or later anyhow, I suppose, so I may as well tell you at the beginning, that this is partly a story for girls, and partly a story for boys. The girl part is about the doll, and the boy part is about breaking it, and after that--

Well, I guess I had better tell you the story, and let you see for yourselves what happened afterward.

The reason this story is to be both for girls and boys is because my little girl asked me to write a story with a doll in it. I said I would.

And right after that my little boy, who heard her, said:

"And please put a scary part in it for me."

You see boys like the scary part. So that's why this is a sort of double-jointed story--one part for girls and the other for boys.

Now that I have explained it I will begin.

One day Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, hurried home from school with his brother Noodle, and said:

"I know what let's do! We'll get in our play-boat, and go off on a voyage. Maybe we'll find an island where oranges and bananas and cocoanuts grow, and we can play we're shipwrecked, and pirates and all like that."

"All right--let's," agreed Noodle. "Shall we take our sister Crackie along?"

"No, not this time," said Toodle. "She might be afraid if we played pirates, or anything like that. Besides, she is having a good time with her doll. We'll leave her home."

And, truly, Crackie, who was the baby beaver girl, who was always dropping things, and breaking or cracking them (without the least in the world meaning to), Crackie, I say, was playing with her doll. It was a new wooden doll, made from a part of a birch tree that Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all, had gnawed down for the little girl. Crackie's rubber doll was asleep under the refrigerator, where she would be nice and cool.

So Toodle and Noodle started off in their play-boat which was a log hollowed out so they could sit in it. They used their tails for sails.

Now those beaver boys could swim much faster and better than any boat you ever saw, and that's why it is so queer that they wanted to go off in a hollowed-out log. But they did. Why, do you know, I have seen real boys who would rather get on an old raft made of boards, and paddle around in a mud puddle, getting all wet--they would rather do that almost any day than go to school, or have their hair cut or a tooth pulled. Isn't that odd?

Well, anyhow, as the peanut man sometimes says, Toodle and Noodle sailed off and Crackie stayed home and played with her doll. She made a new dress for it out of part of a clothespin and a lead pencil. And she made a hat out of a strawberry box, trimming it with shavings. That's what it is to have a wooden doll, you see.

And now, for a minute or so, I'll tell you what happened to Noodle and Toodle. This is where the scary part comes in, so cuddle down in papa's or mamma's lap if you like, though it isn't going to be so very scary.

The two little beaver boys sailed on and on in their play-boat and pretty soon they were nearly across the big beaver pond. And then they saw an island. It had some trees growing on it, and it looked to be a good place to pretend being shipwrecked, and pirates, and all like that, and Toodle called to Noodle:

"Let's land there, my brave old salt!" He said that, making believe he was a sailor, you understand.

"Ha! We will land there, messmate!" replied Noodle to Toodle, also making believe he was a sailor.

So they steered their boat toward the island and landed there. There were no orange trees, I am sorry to say, and no cocoanut ones, though I suppose I could just as well as not have written about them growing there. Perhaps next time I will. But, anyhow, as the hand organ man says occasionally, Toodle and Noodle saw a hickory nut tree there, and the two beaver boys thought they would get some of the nuts.

"We can eat some," said Toodle.

"And with the others we can play marbles," said Noodle.

With that they began to gnaw down the tree, for that to them, was easier than climbing up, as Billie or Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel brothers, would have done.

Well, Toodle and Noodle had the tree almost gnawed down, and they were thinking how good the nuts would taste, when, all of a sudden, the bad wolf, who owned the island and the trees, and all on it, came along, and he growled:

"Ah, ha! This is the time I have those beaver boys! Taking my trees, eh? Just for that I'll take them both off to jail and bite them on each of their ears. Wow!"

Wasn't he the bad old wolf, though?

So before Toodle or Noodle could run away, for they were not very quick on their feet on land, as I have told you, before they could get away the wolf had them both. He held Toodle in one paw and Noodle in the other, and he just glared at them, worse than a rag doll stares at the ceiling when she's asleep.

"Oh, please let us go!" begged Noodle. "I'll give you an ice cream cone if you do."

"Yes, and I'll give you two," said Toodle.

"No, sir-ee sir!" exclaimed the wolf, just as the coal man sometimes speaks before he brings in the ice. "I am going to take you off to jail," and away the wolf started with Toodle and Noodle.

Now, just about this time Crackie, the little girl beaver, had her wooden doll all dressed, and she thought she would start out to find her brothers. She asked some other boy and girl beavers, who were out playing after school, which way Toodle and Noodle had gone in their play-boat, and in this way Crackie started toward the make-believe shipwreck island. But she did not go in a boat--she swam, and carried her doll on her back so as not to wet her strawberry-box bonnet.

Crackie easily found the island, for she was a very smart little beaver girl, but at first she could not see her brothers. Then Crackie saw where the two boy beavers had started to gnaw down the hickory nut tree, and next she saw the tracks of the wolf, and she guessed what had happened.

"Oh, the bad wolf has my brothers!" said Crackie. "I am going to try to save them!"

So, without stopping to think that she, a little beaver girl, could not do much against a bad wolf, Crackie started out. And she had not gone very far before she came up behind a blackberry bush, on which strawberries happened to be growing, and on the other side of that bush sat the wolf, holding Toodle in one paw and Noodle in the other. The wolf had become tired and had stopped to rest.

"You boys are a regular nuisance," growled the wolf. "I wish I had you in jail now."

"Pray, do not take us if it is too much trouble," said Noodle, politely, hoping he and his brother would be let go.

"Oh, I'll take you to jail just the same," said the bad old wolf, "only I'll bite your ears now instead of after I get you there. It may be so dark when I get you to the jail that I can't see to do it."

Then Toodle and Noodle felt very badly at having started to gnaw down the hickory trees but they had not meant to do wrong, and if they had known the island belonged to the wolf they'd never have gone there at all.

"Well, I guess I'll bite your ears," said the wolf, and he opened his wide mouth. And, just as he did so, brave Crackie reached around from behind the strawberry-lemon pie bush, and right between the wolf's opened teeth she stuck her wooden doll, and when the wolf closed down his jaws he bit on the wooden doll, instead of on Noodle's ear, and the doll broke in two.

So that's how Crackie spoiled her doll.

"Wow! Double wow and some pepper hash!" cried the wolf, as surprised as anything at having bitten on a wooden doll when he didn't mean to. "This is terrible!" And with that the wolf dropped Noodle and Toodle and ran off to have his dentist make him a new set of teeth, as he had broken his. So the two beaver boys were safe, you see.

Of course they were very thankful to Crackie for saving them, and they felt sorry about her broken doll. But the doll was easily fixed when Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, came along with some paste, so Crackie's pet was soon as good as ever.

Then she went home with Noodle and Toodle to have her supper and get to bed. And in the next story, if the lady's hatpin doesn't stick in the automobile tire and let all the juice run out, like an orange shortcake at a picnic, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle playing Indian.

STORY XII

TOODLE AND NOODLE PLAY INDIAN

One day Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver gentleman of them all, came in from where he had been looking at the dam which held the water in the pond from running out. Grandpa Whackum, who was called that, you remember, because he used to whack his tail on the ground, to warn his friends of danger--Grandpa Whackum brought with him to the beaver house where Toodle and Noodle and Crackie Flat-tail lived, some long, slender pieces of wood he had picked up.

They were left over after a hole in the dam had been mended, and the hole was made by the bad skillery-scalery alligator sticking in his double-jointed tail.

"There, boys," said Grandpa Whackum to Toodle and Noodle as he tossed them the sticks, "there is something you can make bows and arrows of."

"Oh, goodie!" cried Noodle.

"And we can play Indian!" said Toodle. "That will be fun; eh, Noodle?"

"Sure," said Noodle.

"May I play?" asked Crackie, who was making a sawdust dress for her wooden doll, the same one the wolf bit in two and Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, mended, you remember.

"Pooh! Girls can't play Indian!" said Noodle. "You could be a Red-Cross nurse if you wanted to, though, and take care of us when we get shot."

"I don't want to do that," said the little beaver girl. "I want to be a real Indian myself and play with you."

"Oh, girls can't be Indians," said Toodle, and with that he and his brother, thinking no more of Crackie, began to make their bows and arrows.

To make a bow you take a stick and bend it. Then you make it fast, so it can't uncurve, by tying the two ends with a long string. That makes the string tight, and when you put an arrow on the string and stretch it and let it go suddenly, the arrow shoots a long way off.

But you must be very careful not to have sharp arrows, and not to aim them at any one--ever! Shoot at the fence. The fence doesn't mind it.

Soon Toodle and Noodle had their bows and arrows all made and they started off to find a good place to play Indian.

"We won't go to the wolf's island this time," said Toodle.

"No, indeed," agreed Noodle. "It's too dangerous. If we go anywhere let's go to a butterfly's island. A butterfly won't hurt us, even if we should gnaw down his peach tree."