Part 9

"Oh, he went to the store for mamma. She wanted some molasses to make a birch bark pudding with. We needn't wait for Noodle, if you are going after chestnuts. I heard him say he was going to play football with Munchie Trot, the pony boy, when he came back from the store. If we get any chestnuts I'll save him some, anyhow."

"Oh, we're sure to get some," spoke Billie.

"Yes, for we know where lots of trees grow," added Johnnie. "Come along now, Toodle."

So Toodle, the little beaver boy, and Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, started after chestnuts.

On and on they went through the woods and as they went Toodle sang this little song, which he made up all himself, without anyone helping him:

"Chestnuts grow on big trees, Almost to the sky. And if you ever climb one Don't go up too high.

"If you take a tumble, Don't fall on your head, Unless you put under you Mamma's feather bed."

"Well, well!" laughed Billie Bushytail. "That's pretty good!"

"It surely is," said his brother Johnnie. "But how can you tell when you're going to fall, Toodle, so as to have the feather bed with you?"

"I guess you'd have to take it along each time you went nutting," said the little beaver boy. "I only put the feather bed in the verse to make it rhyme, anyhow. You don't really need it."

Then they went on a little farther and soon they had come to the place where the chestnut trees grew.

"Now, Billie and I will climb up," said Johnnie. "We'll knock the chestnuts down to you, Toodle, and you can gather them into a pile. When we have all we want we'll divide them."

"Very good," said the little beaver boy, who knew he could not climb a tree as well as can squirrels. "And if you get up the tree and can't get down again, I can gnaw it down for you, with my big orange-colored teeth. And I'll let it fall so gently that you won't be hurt."

"Thank you," said Billie, "but I guess we can get down, Toodle."

Up the chestnut tree scrambled the squirrel boys and soon they were throwing down lots of chestnuts to Toodle, who gathered them into a pile. Once in a while, a chestnut would hit the little beaver boy on the head, but he did not mind that.

"You want to look out, though, if any of the big, round, stickery chestnut burrs fall on you," said Billie. "Of course we wouldn't mean to throw any on you and there are not many left that aren't opened, but one might accidentally hit you."

"Oh, I'll look out," laughed Toodle.

Well, some of the prickly burrs did come down, but they did not hit Toodle, and he brushed them to one side, in a pile, with his thick, strong tail, which even a chestnut burr could not hurt.

"Well, I guess we have all the nuts off this tree," said Billie, after a bit. "Come on down, Johnnie, and we'll go look for another one," and down the squirrel boys scrambled, as quickly as a monkey on a stick, or a jumping-jack, if you prefer that. So Toodle didn't have to gnaw the tree down.

"We'll go over there by that old stump," said Billie, pointing to it with his tail.

"Shall I come?" asked Toodle.

"No, you had better stay here and keep guard over the chestnuts on the ground," said Johnnie. "Some one might come and take them while we are gone. We won't be long, and if there are any nuts on the trees over there we'll come back and get you, and these nuts too."

So away went Billie and Johnnie, leaving Toodle on guard by the chestnuts. At first nothing happened, and Toodle was thinking he could even take a little sleep, when, all of a sudden, out from behind a stump came a big, black bear. Oh, but he was a bad one; and he came closer and closer to Toodle, until he stood right in front of the little beaver boy, all ready to grab him.

"Ah, ha!" growled the bear. "Now I have you!"

"Oh, dear!" cried Toodle. "What do you want?"

"I want you and the chestnuts, too," said the bad bear. "Come, get ready! I'm going to carry you off to my den!" and he came nearer to poor Toodle.

The little beaver boy looked to see if he could find anyone to help him. But Billie and Johnnie Bushytail were far off, looking for more chestnut trees, and no one else was near. Even when Toodle whacked with his tail on the ground, the way his papa had taught him to do when there was danger, no one came to help the beaver boy.

"Well, here's where I grab you!" growled the bear, and he was just going to hug Toodle in his sharp claws and maybe scratch him, for all I can tell, when, all of a sudden, Toodle saw a big pile of the prickly chestnut burrs he had brushed together.

"Ah, ha!" thought Toodle. "These will do for that bear."

And with one sweep of his tail along the ground, Toodle sent those burrs in a regular shower in the bear's face. The sharp, prickly stickers stuck in the soft and tender nose of that bear and made him sneeze and cough, and have the toothache and turn a somersault all at once. And then the bear cried:

"Oh, woe is me! I'm all stuck up. I guess I'll go home!"

And home to his den he went, leaving Toodle and the chestnuts alone, and pretty soon Billie and Johnnie came back, not having found any more nut-trees. So Toodle told them about the bear, and how he had driven him off, and the squirrels said the beaver boy was very brave. Then they divided the chestnuts, and went home, and now it's time for you to go to bed.

But on the page after this, if the piece of cheese doesn't jump out of the mouse-trap and scare the clothesline into the waste paper basket, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle on the ice.

STORY XXV

TOODLE AND NOODLE ON THE ICE

"Come, boys! Get up!" called Mrs. Flat-tail, the beaver lady, who was the mother of the two little beaver boys. "Time to get up or you'll be late for school!" and she pounded on the ceiling with a nice piece of birch tree stick, from which she gnawed the bark so that from it she could make griddle cakes for breakfast.

Toodle put one paw out of his bed, which had been made in a pile of nice clean shavings.

"Bur-r-r-r-r-r!" he cried, pulling his paw back quickly again under the warm bed quilt, made of soft brown leaves, sewed together. "Bur-r-r-r-r! It's awful cold!"

"Is it?" asked Noodle, rubbing his eyes with his paws. "Is it cold, Toodle?"

"Indeed it is," replied Toodle. "Just put your paw out and see."

Noodle did so.

"My goodness me, sakes alive, and some icicle soup!" he cried. "I should say it was cold! There'll be skating this morning, I guess. Is Grandpa Whackum down there?" he called to his mamma, who was already cooking the griddle cakes, and putting the maple sugar on the back of the stove, where it would keep warm.

"Yes, I'm here," answered Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all. "I'm down here, boys, and if you don't soon come down here too, I'll go up there and tickle you so you won't know whether you're standing on your head or on your tail. Are you coming?"

"Indeed we are," answered Noodle, and then, getting brave, he suddenly threw back the leaf-bedquilt and jumped out into the middle of the room that was built upstairs in the beaver house, which stood in the middle of a pond of water.

Beavers, you know, are little animals like muskrats, and they just love the water, as I have already told you. They love it so much that nearly always they build their houses right in a pond, which they make by raising a dam to keep the water from running away, just as you do in the gutter on a rainy day.

"See who'll be dressed first!" cried Noodle, and then Toodle jumped out on the cold floor. Soon they were both dressed, for beaver boys have so much fur that they do not need to wear many clothes, even in winter.

"I won!" cried Noodle, who finished the last button on his shoes just as his brother Toodle was beginning to fasten his. "I'm dressed first."

"Oh, well, I don't mind," said Toodle. "I'll be washed first!" and he was, because there was only one wash basin in the boys' room and only one of them could get his paws in it at a time.

"Come! Come!" cried Mrs. Flat-tail again. "The cakes are getting cold, boys."

"I'll be down stairs first!" cried Noodle, and he ran for the banister, reached it ahead of his brother, and down he slid--"ker-bang!" landing on the kitchen rug. So he was downstairs first. Then both the little beaver boys ate as many birch bark pancakes as were good for them, and Crackie, their little sister, ate two and part of another one.

"Oh, look at our pond!" cried Toodle, as he gazed out of the window. "It's all frozen over!"

"So it is!" said Noodle. "Oh, it must be very cold!"

"Yes, you had better get out your skates and skate to school," said Grandpa Whackum, who had finished his breakfast.

"But we have no ice skates," said Toodle, "and I don't believe roller skates would be very good."

"Not on ice," answered Grandpa Whackum. "But I'll show you how to make ice skates. If I had some long, clean bones now--"

"I know where there are some!" cried Crackie. "I saw Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, dragging some bones over on shore yesterday."

"The very thing!" cried Grandpa Whackum. "I'll swim to shore, under the ice, and get them. Then I'll make skates for you two beaver boys."

While the children were finishing their nice warm breakfast, Grandpa Whackum dived out through the front door of the beaver house. This door was under water, and the old gentleman beaver soon found himself under the ice that covered the top of the pond. But he was used to that. So he swam to shore until he found a place where the ice was broken through in a round hole.

Then, he popped out and along the frozen bank of the beaver pond he ran until he found the bones the little puppy dog boys had been playing with the day before.

"These bones will make fine skates for the boys," said Grandpa Whackum. "They are long and straight and smooth."

Down under the ice he went again, and soon he was once more in the beaver house. Toodle and Noodle were getting their books ready to start for school.

"I think it is too cold for you to go today, Crackie," said Mrs. Flat-tail.

"Oh, mamma, I don't want to stay home! I want to go to school today!" cried the little beaver girl. "I know all my lessons."

"We could pull her along on our tails for a sled," said Toodle.

"Especially if we skate," added his brother.

"Oh, you'll skate, all right!" said Grandpa Whackum, as he went on making the bone skates. It was quite easy. All he had to do was to fasten some strings to the bones, so Toodle and Noodle could tie them to their hind paws. Then they could glide along on the bones, over the ice, just as you boys and girls use your roller skates.

Toodle and Noodle were delighted with the bone skates their grandpa made for them.

"It won't take us long to get to school on these," said Toodle.

"That is, if we don't fall down much," agreed Noodle.

"Oh! I'll show you how to skate so you will not fall down very much," said Grandpa Whackum.

So they all went out on the ice, the old gentleman beaver himself putting on a pair of bone skates. Then he showed Toodle and Noodle how to strike out, and how to glide, and they were soon able to skate very well.

"Ding-dong!" rang the school bell.

"Come on!" cried Toodle. "We'll be late!"

"Wait for me! Wait for me!" cried Crackie, as her brothers started off without her.

"Sit on my tail, Crackie," invited Toodle. "I'll give you a ride first, and then Noodle can take a turn. And you can carry our books."

So little Crackie sat down on the broad flat tail of her brother Toodle, which, as you can see by the picture, was almost as good as a sled. I wish I could show you a picture of Crackie riding to school this way, but I am not allowed, as I don't know how to draw.

Anyhow, off the two little beaver boys started, over the ice, on their bone skates, that were tied fast to their hind paws. Crackie went with them.

"Ding-dong!" rang the school bell. Faster and faster skated Toodle and Noodle. They felt sure they would not be late this time.

Pretty soon Crackie jumped over on Noodle's tail, and on they went faster than ever.

But something happened. They were almost at the school, which was in an old boat, that was now frozen fast in the ice, when, all of a sudden, out from behind a stump popped a hungry bear. Oh, he was so hungry! He hadn't had his breakfast, and when he saw Toodle and Noodle and Crackie, he just smacked his lips, and rolled out his red tongue, nearly biting it with his sharp teeth, and that bear cried:

"Oh, ho! Now I will have something to eat!"

He ran after the beaver children, and Crackie called:

"Oh, Toodle! Oh, Noodle! Skate! Skate as fast as you can away from that bear!"

"That's what we will!" shouted Toodle. Then the two beaver boys skated faster than they had ever skated before, Noodle pulling Crackie along on his tail. On came the bear. He was getting nearer and nearer, when, all of a sudden, Noodle cried:

"Quick, Toodle, turn to the left. There's a hole right through the ice!"

Toodle and Noodle both turned aside and skated past the hole, but the bear couldn't stop himself, nor turn quickly enough, and "plump!" he went into the ice-cold water, making a spray just like a fountain. And he got all wet and frozen, and his feet stuck to the ice when he got out, so he couldn't chase Toodle and Noodle or Crackie any more, and the beaver children got safely to school, a little out of breath, but otherwise all right. Every one said they were very brave.

So that's how Toodle and Noodle skated on the ice and saved Crackie from the bear, and next, if the water pitcher doesn't fall down the cellar and put the furnace fire out in the ash can to sleep all night, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle playing football.

STORY XXVI

TOODLE AND NOODLE PLAY FOOTBALL

It was quite cold and shivery one day when Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boys, started for school. It was not quite as cold as the day they had skated on the ice, riding their sister Crackie on their tails, when they got away from the bear, who fell into the water, as I told you yesterday.

No, it was not quite as cold as that, but still it was very shivery, and as Toodle and Noodle hurried along, with their books tucked under their left forelegs, they put their paws in their pockets.

"There'll be lots of skating if this keeps on," said Noodle.

"Indeed there will," said his brother Toodle.

And the reason there was no skating just then was because there had been a little warm spell, and the ice on the beaver pond had melted, cracking all up, and was floating about in chunks, like little boats. But they were cold little boats, and the beavers did not like to swim among them.

Crackie was not going to school that day, as she had the sniffle-snuffles and her nose was all red and her eyes ached and filled with water, and she had to have a piece of red flannel around her throat. Oh, well, you know how it is when you have the sniffle-snuffles, don't you? So there's no use in me stopping any longer over that part. I may as well get on with the story.

"I wish it would snow," said Toodle, as he stumbled over a humpy place in the woods through which he and his brother were going just then to get to the school, which had been moved to a hollow stump, instead of being in the boat, as before.

Professor Rat, the principal, said it was getting too cold to have school in the boat any longer so he and the lady bug teacher, and the janitor, and the blackboards and the bell, all moved into the hollow stump--not the one where the bear lived, though. No, indeed! I guess not!

Of course the bell and blackboards didn't move themselves from the boat-school into the school stump. No, the janitor and Professor Rat did that, and the lady bug teacher looked on and said:

"Oh, dear! Isn't it dreadful hard work to move a school?"

"Why do you wish it to snow?" asked Noodle of Toodle, after a while.

"So we could go sleigh riding and build a snow house--"

"Oh, that's so! I forgot what fun we can have when it snows!" cried Noodle. "I was thinking that it would spoil the skating, but there isn't any to spoil now. Let's wish real hard that it would snow."

So the beaver boys wished as hard as they could, and looked up at the sky, hoping to see some of the white flakes sifting down. But they saw none.

"We'd better hurry," called Noodle. "There goes the first bell and we've got quite a long way to go yet!"

So the two little beaver boys hurried on and, just as they got to the bridge over the tiny little brook that sang a merry song in the summer, but which did not sing so merrily in winter, Toodle and Noodle heard some one saying:

"Oh, who will buy? Oh, who will buy, My last balloon before I cry?"

"Hark! What's that?" whispered Noodle.

"I don't know," answered Toodle. "It sounded like--like--somebody!"

"Of course it was somebody," spoke Noodle. "But who? That's the question."

They stood on the little bridge over the small brook and once more they heard the voice saying, louder than before, this time:

"Oh, buy it quick! Oh, buy it quick My red balloon upon a stick."

"That's funny," said Toodle, looking at his brother, who was sitting down on his tail to rest himself. "Do you s'pose that could be the circus elephant? He used to like balloons."

"It doesn't sound like the elephant," answered Noodle. "Still, you never can tell--"

Then the voice, that seemed to come from under the bridge, interrupted the little beaver boy by saying:

"Please buy this red balloon of me. It is my last one; can't you see? I'll make the price--Oh, very low. For just one cent I'll let it go."

"Oh, Toodle!" cried Noodle, "have you a cent? If you have let's buy this balloon!"

"But how do we know who is selling it, or where he is, or whether it's really a balloon or not?" asked Toodle, looking in his pocket to see if he still had the penny Grandpa Whackum had given him the night before.

"Well, we can look under the bridge;" said Noodle, "and find out. Any one who sells balloons--especially red ones--is sure to be kind and good. I'm going to take a look through the crack in the bridge. We have time before the last bell rings."

So Noodle peeked down through a crack in the bridge floor, and there sitting on a stone near the water was a little monkey-doodle boy, with one red balloon tied to a stick.

"Do you really want to sell that balloon for a penny?" asked Noodle. "We'll buy it from you if you do."

The monkey looked up and saw the beaver boys, and in an instant he had scrambled up on the bridge.

"It is my last balloon," said the monkey-doodle. "I am all sold out except this one, so I am going to let you have it for a penny. Circus time is past, and I want to go and take a long sleep. I don't need the balloon any more."

"Well, then, we'll take it," said Toodle, lifting the penny out of his pocket. "We can have fun flying it."

"Oh, I can tell you how to have more fun with it than that," said the monkey-doodle, as he got ready to go away down South where it is warm, for monkeys like it warm in the winter. "You can play football with that balloon, and football is a very nice game for cold weather. It warms you. You must get some leather and make a covering for the red balloon. Then, when you kick it, the balloon won't burst. Make a football of it, I say."

"I guess we will," agreed Toodle.

Well, the beaver boys went on to school, with their red balloon, and, in order that the teacher would not take it away from them in the class room, they tied it outside in a tree, the way Mary told her lamb to stay outside. But the lamb wouldn't stay outside, and neither would the red balloon-football.

A window happened to be open, and all of a sudden the ball blew into the school, though it was still tied to the string on the tree branch. All the animal children in the hollow-stump school laughed and so did the teacher.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked the lady bug of Toodle and Noodle, when they told her about their balloon, and when the window had been shut so it couldn't come in again.

"Make a football of it," answered Toodle.

"Only we have to cover it with leather," said Noodle, "so it won't break."

"Oh, I'll do that for you," said the lady bug teacher, who liked boys. So that night she took the red balloon home with her and she made a leather cover for it, bringing it back next morning. Oh, it was a fine football then!

"Let's have a game!" cried Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, as he gave the new football a kick that sent it away over the fence. It was so light you see--the football I mean, not the fence--that it flew all over.

"All right, we'll have some fun!" cried Toodle, and then he and Noodle and Billie Bushytail and Sammie Littletail and all the animal boys, including Munchie Trot, the pony, played football in the school yard until it was time to go in.

Now, though the boys didn't know it, there was hiding behind the fence the same old bear that had chased Toodle and Noodle and Crackie one day on the ice.

"I'll just wait until one of those animal boys comes near this hole in the fence," thought the bad bear, "then I'll grab him and have a nice lunch."

Well, Toodle was going to kick the football and Noodle got away over by the fence to grab it when it came down.

"Kick away!" called Noodle to Toodle.

"And now is my chance to get him," thought the bear. Toodle kicked the balloon-football as hard as he could and just as Noodle was going to get it, the bear made a grab for him. But all of a sudden, the wind blew the football off to one side, and instead of Noodle getting it, that football hit the bear on the nose. Smacko! Cracko!

The football was so light and fluffy that it tickled the bear and made him sneeze, and whenever a bear sneezes he can bite no one except his own tongue. That's what this bear did, and he was so angry that he gave three howls and part of another one, and then he ran home to his den where he belonged.

Then the football game went on until it was time to go into school and all the boy animals said they had had a fine time.

They thanked Toodle and Noodle for buying the balloon-football from the monkey-doodle and many times that winter, when it was not too cold, there were football games.

So no more just now, if you please, but in the next story, if the rocking chair doesn't step on the molasses jug's ear and make the popcorn balls cry to go to the moving pictures, I'll tell you about Crackie Flat-tail and Joie Kat.

STORY XXVII

CRACKIE AND JOIE KAT

"Mamma, is Crackie going to school today?" asked Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, one morning, when it was almost time for the first bell to ring.

Mrs. Flat-tail looked out of the window of the beaver house in the pond behind the dam, and said:

"No, I think not. Her sniffle-snuffles are not much better today than they were yesterday. Besides, it is rather warm weather now, the pond is not frozen and it looks like snow. I think I shall keep her home until tomorrow, at least. Now run along, Toodle--you and Noodle. And be good boys."

"We will," promised Noodle, as he caught up the red balloon-football, covered with leather. He and his brother and the other animal boys thought they would have a fine game that day.

Crackie, the little beaver girl, felt very lonesome after her brothers had left her. She had not been going to school very long, and she was in the kindergarten, but still she liked her teacher and her schoolmates. However, when a beaver girl has the sniffle-snuffles she can't very well go to school, for she sneezes all the time; and when the teacher asks how many three and two are she has to say:

"Ak-er-choo," which isn't the right answer at all.

So, as I say, Crackie felt a little lonesome. But her mamma let her help dry the breakfast dishes, and Crackie only dropped a saucer, which didn't break very much, only about half of it falling off.