Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: Right on top of the bark cabin crashed the tree.] _Kneetime Animal Stories_ TOTO THE BUSTLING BEAVER HIS MANY ADVENTURES BY RICHARD BARNUM Author of âSquinty, the Comical Pig,â âTum Tum, the Jolly Elephant,â âSharp Eyes, the Silver Fox,â âTamba, the Tame Tiger,â âNero, the Circus Lion,â Etc. _ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER S. ROGERS_ NEW YORK BARSE & HOPKINS PUBLISHERS KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES By Richard Barnum _Large 12mo. Illustrated._ SQUINTY, THE COMICAL PIG. SLICKO, THE JUMPING SQUIRREL. MAPPO, THE MERRY MONKEY. TUM TUM, THE JOLLY ELEPHANT. DON, A RUNAWAY DOG. DIDO, THE DANCING BEAR. BLACKIE, A LOST CAT. FLOP EAR, THE FUNNY RABBIT. TINKLE, THE TRICK PONY. LIGHTFOOT, THE LEAPING GOAT. CHUNKY, THE HAPPY HIPPO. SHARP EYES, THE SILVER FOX. NERO, THE CIRCUS LION. TAMBA, THE TAME TIGER. TOTO, THE BUSTLING BEAVER. BARSE & HOPKINS Publishers New York Copyright, 1920 by Barse & Hopkins _Toto, the Bustling Beaver_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I TOTO HELPS MILLIE 7 II TOTO LEARNS TO GNAW 17 III TOTO MEETS DON 26 IV TOTO AND THE TRAMPS 35 V TOTO SEES SOMETHING QUEER 46 VI TOTO AND THE BURGLARS 54 VII TOTO AND THE BOY 64 VIII TOTO MEETS BLACKIE 71 IX TOTO IN A TRAP 81 X TOTO ON A BOAT 89 XI TOTO GETS HOME AGAIN 98 XII TOTO IN A STORM 108 ILLUSTRATIONS Right on top of the bark cabin crashed the tree _Frontispiece_ PAGE And he slipped down, tail first through the hole 23 Crash! Bang! went the big tree 41 Everybody in the beaver colony had work to do 59 âIâll help you down out of the tree,â said Toto cheerfully 79 And then, through the bushes, came a boy 95 A tree had fallen on Totoâs back, pinning him to the ground 113 TOTO, THE BUSTLING BEAVER CHAPTER I TOTO HELPS MILLIE âToto! Toto! Where are you?â 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: âToto! Toto! Come home this minute! Youâve been out on the ice long enough! And goodness knows weâve had plenty of ice and snow this winter,â went on Mrs. Beaver, and she kept on looking up and down the frozen river. âIâll be glad when spring comes so we beavers can gnaw down trees, eat the soft bark, and make dams for our houses,â 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. âWhatâs the matter?â asked an old gentleman beaver, who came along just then. âHas Toto run away?â âI donât know that Iâd call it exactly running away, Mr. Cuppy,â answered Mrs. Beaver. âI 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 hasnât come, so I walked out to call him.â âAnd he doesnât answer,â said Mr. Cuppy, the old beaver gentleman, with a laughââof course he laughed animal fashion, and not as you do. âI guess Toto is off playing tag, or something like that, on the ice with the other beaver boys,â added Mr. Cuppy. âIâm going down the river to call on some friends of mine. If I see Toto Iâll tell him you want him.â âI wish you would,â said Mrs. Beaver. âPlease tell him to come straight home.â âI will,â answered Mr. Cuppy, and then he got up from the ice, where he had sat down on his broad, flat tail to talk to Totoâs mother, and walked slowly down the ice-covered river which ran into Clearwater Lake. That is, the river ran in summer time. In winter it was frozen over, though of course the water ran under the ice, where boys and girls could not see it. But Toto, Mr. Cuppy, and the other beavers could see it, for they could dive under the ice and swim in the water that flowed beneath it. In fact, they would rather swim in the water, cold as it was, than walk on the ice. For a beaver can not very well walk on the iceââit is too slippery. Nor can a beaver walk very fast even on dry ground. But, my! how fast they can swim in water. So, though beavers very often come out on the land, or shore, they always run for the water, dive down, and swim away as soon as there is the least sign of danger. Mrs. Beaver walked back toward the hole in the ice through which she intended getting into her house, where she lived with her husband, Mr. Beaver, Toto, and another little beaver boy named Sniffy. Mrs. Beaverâs home looked just like a bundle of sticks from the woodpile, laid together criss-cross fashion. In fact, if you had seen it from the outside you would have said it was only a heap of rubbish. This heap of sticks was built out near the middle of Winding River, which was not a very large stream. And now that the river was frozen, the pile of sticks, which made the beaver house, was heaped up above the frozen ice. The front door to the beaver home was under waterââso far under that it did not freezeââand when Toto or any of the family wanted to come out, they had to dive down, swim under water, and come out on top some distance away. When the river was not frozen they could come out of the water wherever they pleased. But when Jack Frost had made the river a solid, hard sheet of ice, the beavers had to come out of it just where a hole had been made for them. Sometimes they made the hole themselves by blowing their warm breath on the underside of the ice, and sometimes they used an airhole such as you often see when you are skating. Mrs. Beaver found the hole through the ice, dived down into the water, swam along a short distance until she reached the front door of her house of sticks and frozen mud, and then she went up inside. The house was nicely lined inside with soft grass, and there were a number of short pieces of sticks scattered about. It was the bark from these sticks that the beavers lived on in winter. âDid you find Toto?â asked Mr. Beaver, who was taking a little nap in the house. âNo, I didnât,â answered Mrs. Beaver. âBut I met Mr. Cuppy, the old grandfather beaver, you know, and he said if he saw Toto heâd send our little boy home.â âThat is very kind of Mr. Cuppy.â Mr. Beaver stretched himself. âWell, I think Iâll gnaw a little more bark.â âI want some, too!â called Sniffy, the other little beaver boy. âHere you are!â said his mother, and she took some of the bark-covered sticks from a pile at one side of the house. Of course it was dark inside the house, for mud was plastered thickly over the crossed sticks to keep out the cold and snow. But beavers can see well enough in the dark, just as owls can, or cats. After Mr. Cuppy had watched Mrs. Beaver dive down through the ice and swim away, he walked on down the frozen river. He looked from side to side as he waddled slowly along, hoping to see Toto. But the beaver boy was not in sight. And now, so that you may wonder no longer what had become of the little beaver boy, Iâll tell you where he was and some of the wonderful adventures that happened to him. Toto had asked his mother if he might go out on the ice and play, and she had said he might. Toto was about a year old, having been born the previous spring, and he knew that in winter there was not much to eat outside the beaver house. But he had gnawed a number of sticks of poplar, and of willow, with the sweet, juicy bark on, and now he was not hungry. He was tired of being cooped up in the dark house, frozen fast in the river. So Toto had gone out, and had walked along the ice until he was quite a long way from home. âBut I guess I can easily find my way back,â thought Toto to himself. âItâs pretty slippery walking, and Iâd a good deal rather swim, but if I walk slowly I wonât slip.â So he had walked along the ice until he was out of sight of his home, around one of the many curves in Winding River. That was the reason Mrs. Beaver could not see her little boy, and also why Toto could not hear his mother calling to him. He did not really mean to stay out when his mother did not want him to. âAh, that looks like something good to eat!â said Toto to himself, as he saw some straggly bushes growing on the bank of the river. The bushes had no leaves on, of course, for this was March, and winter was still king of the land. But Toto thought there might be bark on some of the twigs of the bushes, and bark was what the beavers mostly ate in winter. He was not hungry, but Toto, like other boys, was always ready to eat. Toto walked slowly over the ice, and, standing up on his hind legs and partly sitting on his broad, flat tail, which was almost like the mortar trowel a mason uses, the little beaver boy began to gnaw the bark. But he had not taken more than a bite or two before he stopped suddenly. âOuch!â cried Toto. âSomething bit me!â He looked aboutââthere were no bees or wasps flying, which might have stung him. Still something had pricked him on his tongue. Then he looked more closely at the twig he had been gnawing. âOh, ho!â exclaimed Toto. âNo wonder! This is a blackberry bush, and the thorns pricked me. I wonât gnaw any more of this bark.â Toto backed away and started over the ice again, but he had not moved more than a few feet from the thick clump of blackberry bushes, growing on the edge of the river, when, all of a sudden, the little beaver boy heard a queer noiseââseveral noises, in fact. One was a tinkly sound, a sound Toto remembered to have heard when in summer a farmer was hoeing corn in a field near the river, and his hoe struck on a stone in the dirt. Then came the noise of a thud, as if something heavy had fallen on the ice. And after that sounded the voice of a little girl saying: âOh dear! There goes my skate!â Of course Toto did not understand man, girl, or boy talk. But he knew what it was, for in the summer, as he played around his stick-home in the river, he had often heard the farmer and his hired men talking in the fields not far away. So, though Toto did not know what the little girl said, he knew it was the same sound the farmer and his men had made when they talked to one another. And Toto was afraid of men, and boys and girls, too, though I donât believe any girl would have tried to hurt or catch the beaver, nice as is their fur. But this particular little girl, whose name was Millie Watson, did not even know Toto was near her. She had been skating on the ice when one of her skates suddenly came off, and she fell down. The tinkly sound the beaver heard was the loose steel skate sliding over the ice and striking a stone near the bush under which Toto was hidden. The thudding sound was that made by Millie when she fell. But she was not hurt. âOh, dear!â she said again. âI wonder where my skate slid to. I canât get along on only one skate, and itâs slow walking on the ice. Where is it?â She slowly arose to her feet. One skate was still on her foot, but on the other shoe was only a loose strap. Millie, who had skated from her home to take a little pail of soup to her grandmother, who lived farther down the river, was on her way back when she lost her skate. âI donât see where it can be,â mused the little girl, looking here and there on the ice. The reason she could not see the skate was because it had slid under the edge of the overhanging berry bush. âI hope she doesnât see me!â thought Toto, as he crouched down under the twigs. âI wish it were summer, and there were leaves on this bush. I could hide better then, and the river wouldnât be frozen, so I could swim away very fast if this girl comes after me. Dear me! I wonder what she is doing here, anyhow.â Toto did not know much about skating. But as he peered out at the little girl he saw her pushing herself along on one foot, and on that foot was something long, thin and shiny. It sparkled in the sun, just as the blade of the farmerâs hoe sometimes sparkled. Toto looked on either side of him, and there, close to him, was another shiny thing, just like the one the girl had on one foot. Toto could see the girl moving slowly along, and looking from side to side. âShe must be looking for me!â thought Toto, and his heart began to beat very fast, for his father and mother had told him always to keep away from men and boys; and this girl was probably just like a boy, the little beaver thought. He had seen boys along the river bank in summer trying to catch muskrats, and sometimes trying to catch beavers, too. Toto did not want to be caught. So he crouched lower and lower under the bush, and then, all of a sudden, his feet slipped on the ice and they struck the long, shiny thing that was like the object the girl had on one foot. Instantly there was another tinkly sound, and the shiny thing slid across the ice, out from under the overhanging bush and straight toward the little girl. âOh! Oh!â cried Millie, clapping her mittened hands. âHere is my lost skate! It was under the bush, but I wonder what pushed it out! There must be something there! Iâm going to look!â Toto heard this talk, but did not know what it was. However, he could see the little girl stoop down and pick up the skate he had accidentally knocked over the ice to her. Then he saw Millie come straight toward the bush under which he was hiding! CHAPTER II TOTO LEARNS TO GNAW Toto, the little beaver boy, was a bright, bustling chap. He was what is called a âhustlerâ or a âbustlerâââthat is, some one always ready for work or play. But just now, as Toto saw the little girl coming toward the bush where he was hidden, he did not know what to do. âBut Iâm going to do something!â thought the beaver boy. âIâm not going to let her catch me! Maybe thatâs a trap she tried to get me inââmaybe that shiny thing is a trap!â Toto knew what traps were, for his father and mother had told him about them, and how to keep away from their sharp teeth that caught beavers and muskrats by the legs. Millie came closer and closer. With bright, eager eyes, almost as bright and eager as those of Toto himself, she looked at the bush. Toto was all ready to run, and he wished, more than ever, that the river was not frozen, since he would not have been a bit afraid if he could have jumped in the flowing stream to swim away. He was not afraid of any creature in the water, and the fishes were friends of his. Then, all at once, just as Toto was going to start to run and do his best on the slippery ice, he felt himself falling. He had been standing on the edge of the frozen river, where the ice was very thin, and it had given away, letting him down through a hole into the water. âOh, now Iâm all right!â said Toto to himself when he felt the water wetting his thick fur, though it could not wet his skin beneath. And so he was. He was in water now, where he felt much more at home than on the ice. And as he slipped down, tail first through the hole that had broken, he had a glimpse of the little girl. The little girl saw Toto, too, and as soon as she had seen him she clapped her red-mittened hands again and cried: âOh, itâs a little beaver! He knocked my skate out to me! Oh, donât go away, little beaver!â cried Millie. âI wonât hurt you!â But of course Toto did not know that, and he did not know what the little girl was saying. He just wanted to get away from her, and back to his own stick house. So he dived down under the water, his fur being so thick and warm that he was not a bit cold. And away he swam beneath the ice that covered Winding River. âOh, heâs gone!â cried Millie, when she saw the beaver disappear. âI wish I could have him to take home! Maybe Iâll see him again! Anyhow, he was nice to shove my skate out to me!â Millie sat down on the bank and began putting on the skate that had slipped off, causing her to fall. And, though she never guessed it, she was to see Toto again, and the beaver was to see how Millie and her grandmother were made happy. âWell, Toto, where have you been?â asked his mother, when, some little time later, the beaver boy swam up to the front door of the stick house. âIâve been looking all over for you!â âI didnât mean to stay away so long, Mother,â answered Toto, in beaver talk, of course. âBut it was so slippery on the ice that, when I got to going, it was hard to stop. I tried to eat some bark, but it was full of stickers, and then I had an adventure.â âWhatâs an adventure?â asked Sniffy, who was not quite so bold and daring as was Toto. âItâs something that happens to you,â Toto answered. âAnd what happened to you?â asked Mr. Beaver. Toto told them about Millieâs skate coming off, though of course he did not call it a skate. He said it was a âtrap.â âYou did well to hurry away,â said his father. âItâs lucky for you that you fell through the hole in the ice and could swim. Always, when you are in danger, get in the water if you can. Very few animals can swim as fast as we beavers swim. The water is the place for us, even though we have to go on land to gnaw down the trees for the dams we make.â âWhy do we have to make dams?â asked Sniffy. âTo make the water deep enough for our houses in places where it is otherwise too shallow,â answered Mr. Beaver. âBy putting a lot of trees, sticks, clumps of grass, and mud across a stream the water backs up, and gets deep behind the dam, over which it flows, making a waterfall. We need to build our houses behind the dam, so as to have our doors under water. If we didnât, other animals from the land would come in and get us. But land animals can not get into our houses as long as the front doors are under water, though it is easy for us to dive down and come up inside where the water does not reach. Did anything else happen to you, Toto?â asked his father. âWell, I swam home under the ice as fast as I could,â answered the little beaver boy. âDid you see anything of Mr. Cuppy?â asked Mrs. Beaver. âNo, I didnât,â Toto answered. âDid some one try to catch him in a trap, too?â âNo. But he said heâd send you home if he met you,â replied Mrs. Beaver. âOf course he didnât meet you. Iâll go out and tell him he neednât look for you any more, as you are now at home.â âYes, and Iâm hungry, too,â said Toto. âThe bark on the bush under which I hid was full of thorns. I couldnât eat it.â âHere is some nice aspen bark,â said Mr. Beaver. âLet me see your teeth, Toto?â âWhat for?â the little beaver boy wanted to know. âTo see if they are going to be strong enough to help us gnaw down trees this summer,â went on Mr. Beaver. Toto opened his mouth. His teeth were strong and white, that is all except the four front, or gnawing teeth. Two of these in his upper jaw and two in his lower jaw were a sort of red, or orange, color. All beavers have orange-colored gnawing teeth, and the rest are white, like yours. âHumph! Yes, I think youâll be big enough to help us gnaw down trees this summer,â said Daddy Beaver, as he looked at Totoâs orange teeth, which were almost as sharp and strong as the chisels the carpenter uses to smooth wood with which to build a house. âIs it very hard to gnaw trees down?â Toto wanted to know. âIt must be easy,â said Sniffy, who was eating some aspen bark in the stick house. âSee how easy I can strip this bark off this piece of log.â âGnawing bark is much easier than gnawing through the wood of a big, hard tree,â said Mr. Beaver. âYou boys will learn that soon enough. But here, Toto, try some of this bark.â So Toto and Sniffy gnawed the bark, and Toto told his brother more about the little girl he had seen. He thought she had tried to trap him, but we know Millie had done nothing of the sort. Only her skate had come off. âAnd what do you think!â the little girl said, after she had reached home and was telling her mother about it that night at supper. âMy skate slid right over the ice, under a bush, and a little beaver that was there pushed it out to me.â âSo the beavers are around here, are they?â asked Millieâs father. âI wondered what made a part of Winding River flow so slowly this fall. The beavers must have dammed it up. Well, the beavers are hard-working animals and do little harm. We wonât disturb them.â The rest of that winter Toto lived in the stick house with the other beavers. He did not go out very often, for there is not much beavers can do until the ice and snow are gone. Toto went out on the frozen river a few times, however, but he did not again see the little girl on skates. And though Millie went out skating, she did not see Toto until later in the season. Iâll tell you about that after a while. [Illustration: And he slipped down, tail first through the hole.] Meanwhile the sun climbed higher and higher in the sky. It warmed the earth, the snow and ice melted, the banks of Winding River became green, as the leaves came out on the trees and bushes, and one day Mr. Beaver said: âCome with me, Toto and Sniffy. You are going to learn how to gnaw down trees.â âAre we going to help build the dam bigger?â asked Toto. âYes, thatâs what you are,â his father said. He dived down in the water, to slip out of the front door, and the two beaver boys followed him. Their noses closed, and they kept their mouths tightly shut while under water. But they had their eyes open to see where to swim. They came out on top of the water not far from their own house. But almost as soon as they had poked up their noses to take long breaths, Toto and Sniffy heard a booming, whacking noise, and their father cried: âBack! Back, boys! Dive down! Thereâs danger!â CHAPTER III TOTO MEETS DON You may well believe that Toto and Sniffy did not lose any time diving down under water as soon as they heard their father tell them to do so. Many times before, when they were first learning to swim, they had dived down quickly like this just after they had poked up their noses to get a breath of air. And always their father or mother had swum with them out of danger. âWhat was that whacking noise, Dad?â asked Sniffy, when they were once more safely back in their stick and mud house. âThat was Mr. Cuppy banging his flat tail on the water to let us know there was some danger,â answered Mr. Beaver. âCuppy, or some of the older beavers, are always on guard at or near the dam. If they hear, see or smell danger they whack with their tails. And whenever you hear that whacking sound you little fellows must dive into the water and swim away just as fast as you can.â âOh, now I remember about Mr. Cuppy whacking with his tail!â exclaimed Toto. âYou told us that last summer, didnât you, Dad?â âYes. But the winter has been long, and all that time you have had no chance to hear Mr. Cuppy bang his tail on the water, so I was afraid you had forgotten,â said Mr. Beaver. âI did forget,â answered Sniffy. âAnd I did, too,â said Toto. âBut now Iâm always going to listen for Mr. Cuppyâs tail.â âAnd run and dive into the water as fast as you can when you hear him whacking and banging,â advised Mr. Beaver. âNow weâll wait a little while and then weâll swim up again. The danger may have passed.â Toto and his brother waited with their father perhaps five minutes in the beaver house. Then, once more, they dived down, out of the front door, and up into the river, a little farther away. Mr. Beaver went ahead, and poked up his nose first to look about. He saw a number of beavers working on the dam, among them Mr. Cuppy. âIs it all right?â called Mr. Beaver to the old gentleman. âYes, come along. We need lots of help to make the dam bigger and stronger,â answered Mr. Cuppy. âWhere are your two boys?â âRight here,â answered their father. âItâs all right! Bob up your heads!â he called to Toto and Sniffy. Up they swam, and soon they were among their friends on the dam, which was made of a number of trees laid crosswise over the narrow part of the river. Sticks had been piled back of the trees, and mud, grass-hummocks, and leaves were piled back of the sticks, so that very little water could run through. Back of the dam the water was quite deep, but in front it was very shallow. The beavers all had their houses back of the dam. âWhat was the danger?â asked Mr. Beaver of Mr. Cuppy, as the two animal gentlemen walked along on top of the dam. âDid you see a bear or some other big animal?â âNo,â answered Mr. Cuppy. âThe reason I whacked my tail was because I saw five or six men over in the woods where the trees are that we are going to cut down for our dam.â âWere they hunter men, with guns?â asked Mr. Beaver. âNo, they didnât seem to be hunters,â answered Mr. Cuppy. âThey were rough-looking men, and not dressed as nicely as most hunters are. These men had old rusty cans in their handsââcans like those we sometimes find in our river. I thought they were coming over to our dam to catch us, but they didnât. However I gave the danger signal.â âYes, itâs best to be on the safe side,â returned Mr. Beaver. âWell, now we are hereââmy two boys and myselfââand we are ready to help gnaw down trees for you. My wife will be here in a little while. She has gone to see if she can find some aspen bark for our dinner.â âMy wife has gone to look for some, too,â said Mr. Cuppy. âWell, now, letâs see! Have Toto and Sniffy ever cut down any trees?â âNo, this will be the first time for them,â said their father. âWell, take them over to the little grove and show them how to work,â advised Mr. Cuppy. âWe shall need many trees this spring. How are you, boys? Ready to gnaw with your red teeth?â âYes, sir,â answered Toto and Sniffy. âCome along!â called their father, and into the water they jumped from the top of the dam, to swim to where the trees grew beside the river. Beavers always swim, if they can, to wherever they want to go. They would much rather swim than walk, as they can swim so much better and faster. So, in a little while, Toto and Sniffy stood with their father beside a tree which, near where the tree trunk went into the ground, was as large around as your head. âWe will cut down this tree,â said Mr. Beaver. âWhat! That big tree?â cried Toto. âWe can never gnaw that down, Dad! It will take a year!â âNonsense!â laughed Mr. Beaver. âWe can gnaw down larger trees than this. Before you boys are much older youâll do it yourselves. But now come on, letâs start. Iâll watch you and tell you when you do things the wrong way. Thatâs the way to learn.â âI guess I know how to gnaw a tree down!â boasted Sniffy. âIâve often watched Mr. Cuppy do it.â This little beaver boy stood up on his hind legs, using his tail as a sort of stool to sit on, and he began cutting through the bark of the tree, using his four, strong orange-colored front teeth to gnaw with. âHere! Hold on! Wait a minute!â cried Mr. Beaver to his son, while Toto, who was just going to help his brother, wondered what was the matter. âIsnât this the tree you want gnawed down, Dad?â asked Sniffy. âYes, thatâs the one,â his father answered. âBut if you start to gnaw on that side first the tree will fall right on top of those others, instead of falling flat on the ground as we want it to. You must begin to gnaw on the other side, Sniffy. Then, as soon as you have nearly cut it through, the tree will fall in this open place.â âOh, I didnât know that,â said Sniffy. âNor I,â added his brother. âAlways look to see which way a tree is going to fall,â advised Daddy Beaver, âand be careful you are not under it when it falls. If you do as I tell you then you will always be able to tell just which way a tree will fall to make it easier to get it to the dam.â Then Mr. Beaver told the boys how to do thisââhow to start gnawing on the side of the tree so that it would fall away from them. Lumbermen know which way to make a tree fall, by cutting or sawing it in a certain manner, and beavers are almost as smart as are lumbermen. How they do it I canât tell you, but it is true that beavers can make a tree fall almost in the exact spot they want it. Of course accidents will happen now and then, and some beavers have been caught under the trees they were gnawing down. But generally they make no mistakes. âHow are we going to get the tree to the dam after we gnaw through the trunk?â asked Toto, as he and Sniffy began cutting through the outer bark with their strong, red teeth. âWe canât carry it there.â âWe could if we could bite it into short pieces, as we bite and gnaw into short pieces the logs we gnaw bark from in our house all winter,â said Sniffy. âWe donât want this tree cut up into little pieces,â said Daddy Beaver. âIt must be in one, long length, to go on top of the dam.â âWe never can drag this tree to the dam after we have gnawed it down!â sighed Toto. âIt will be too hard work!â âYou wonât have to do that,â said his father with a laugh. âWe will make the water float the tree to the dam for us.â âBut there isnât any water near here,â said Sniffy. âNo, but we can bring the water right here,â went on Mr. Beaver. âHow?â Toto wanted to know, for he and his brother were young beavers. âWe can dig a canal through the ground, and in that the water will come right up to where we want it,â said Mr. Beaver. âWeâll dig out the dirt right from under the tree, after we have cut it down, and bring the canal to it. The canal will fill with water. The tree, being wood, will float in the water, and a lot of us beavers, getting together, can swim along and push and pull the tree through the canal right to the place where we need it for the dam.â âAre we going to learn how to dig canals, too?â âYes, building dams and canals and cutting down trees are the three main things for a beaver to know,â said his father. âBut learn one thing at a time. Just now you are to learn how to cut down this tree. Now gnaw your bestââeach of you!â So Toto and Sniffy gnawed, taking turns, and their father helped them when they were tired. Soon a deep, white ridge was cut in the side of the tree. âThe tree is almost ready to fall now,â said Mr. Beaver. âYou boys may take a little rest, and Iâll finish the gnawing. But I want you to watch and see how I do it. Thus you will learn.â âMay I go over there by the spring of water and get some sweet bark?â asked Toto. âYes, Iâll wait for you,â answered his father. âI wonât finish cutting the tree down until you come back.â âBring me some bark,â begged Sniffy, as he sat down on his broad, flat tail. âI will,â promised Toto. The little beaver boy waddled away, and soon he was near an aspen tree. Beavers like the bark from this tree better than almost any other. Toto was gnawing away, stripping off some bark for his brother, when, all at once, he heard a rustling sound in the bushes, and a big animal sprang out and stood in front of Toto. âOh, dear me! Itâs a bear!â cried Toto. âNo, I am not a bear,â answered the other animal. âDonât be afraid of me, little muskrat boy. I wonât hurt you.â âIâm not a muskrat! Iâm a beaver!â said Toto. âBut who are you?â âI am Don,â was the answer. âAnd I am a dog. Once I was a runaway dog, but I am not a runaway any longer. But what are you doing here, beaver boy?â âHelping my father cut down a tree for the dam,â Toto answered. âWhat are you doing, Don?â âI am looking for a camp of tramps,â was the answer, the dog and beaver speaking animal talk, of course. âA dog friend of mine said there was a camp of tramps in these woods, and I want to see if I can find them,â went on Don. âWhat are tramps?â asked Toto. âRagged men with tin cans that they cook soup in,â answered Don. âHave you seen any around here?â âNo, but Cuppy, the oldest beaver here, saw some ragged men over in the woods,â began Toto. âMaybe they areâââ But before he could say any more he heard a loud thumping sound, and Toto knew what that meant. âLook out! Thereâs danger!â cried Toto. CHAPTER IV TOTO AND THE TRAMPS Toto, the bustling beaver, ran as fast as he could and took shelter under a big rock that made a place like a little cave on the side of the hill. âWhatâs the matter?â asked Don, the dog. âAre you afraid because I told you about the tramps?â âOh, no,â answered Toto. âBut didnât you hear that thumping sound just now?â âYes, I heard it,â answered Don. âWhat was itââsomebody beating a carpet?â âI donât know what a carpet is,â replied Toto. âWe donât have any at our house. But, whatever it is, it wasnât that. The noise you heard was one of my beaver friends thumping his tail on the ground.â âOh, you mean wagging his tail!â barked Don. âWell, I do that myself when I feel glad. I guess one of your beaver friends must feel glad.â âNo, it isnât that,â went on Toto. âWhenever any of the beavers thumps his tail on the ground it means thereâs danger around, and all of us who hear it run and hide. Youâd better come under this rock with me. Then youâll be out of danger.â Once more the thumping sound echoed through the woods. âBetter come under here with me,â advised Toto. âWell, I guess I will,â barked Don. No sooner was he under the big rock with Toto than, all of a sudden, there was a loud crash, and a great tree fell almost on the place in the woods where Toto and Don had been standing talking. âMy goodness!â barked Don, speaking as dogs do. âItâs a good thing we were under this rock, Toto, or else that tree would have fallen on us! Did you know it was going to fall?â âWell, no, not exactly. My brother and I have been practicing on gnawing a tree this morning, but ours isnât cut down yet. My father is going to finish cutting it, and show Sniffy and me how it is done. But he promised not to cut all the way through until I got back. So I donât believe it was our tree that fell.â âIs it all right for us to come out now?â asked Don. Though he was older than the beaver boy, he felt that perhaps Toto knew more about the woodsââespecially when tree-cutting was going on. Toto sat up on his tail under the big rock and listened with his little ears. He heard the beavers, which were all about, talking among themselves, and he and Don heard some of them say: âItâs all right now. Cuppy and Slump have cut down the big tree for the dam. It has fallen, and now it is safe for us to come out.â The dog and the little beaver came out from under the overhanging rock, and Don noticed the pieces of bark Toto had stripped off. âWhat are you going to do with them?â asked Don. âMake a basket?â âA basket? I should say not!â exclaimed Toto. âIâm going to eat some and take the rest to my father and brother. They are farther back in the woods, cutting down a tree. Donât you like bark?â âBark? I should say not!â laughed Don in a barking manner. âI like bones to gnaw, but not bark, though I bark with my mouth. That is a different kind, though. But I suppose it wouldnât do for all of us to eat the same things. There wouldnât be enough to go around. But tell me: Do you always hear a thumping sound whenever there is danger in the woods?â âYes, thatâs one of the ways we beavers have of talking to one another,â answered Toto. âWhenever one of us is cutting a tree down, and he sees that it is about to fall, he thumps on the ground as hard as he can with his tail. You see our tails are broad and flat, and they make quite a thump.â Don turned and looked at Totoâs tail. âYes, itâs quite different from mine,â said the dog. âI sometimes thump my tail on the floor, when my master gives me something good to eat or pats me on the head. But my tail doesnât make much noise.â âWell, a beaverâs tail does,â explained Toto. âSo whenever any of us hear the thumping sound we know there is danger, and we run away or hide.â âIâm glad to know this,â said Don. âWhen Iâm in the woods, from now on, and hear that thumping sound, Iâll look around for danger, and Iâll hide if I canât get out the way. Well, Iâm glad to have met you,â went on Don. âI donât suppose you have seen Blackie, have you?â âWho is Blackie?â asked the beaver boy. âIs he another dog?â âNo, sheâs a cat!â explained Don, with a laugh. âSheâs quite a friend of mine. She has a story all to herself in a book, and I have one, too. I donât suppose you were ever in a book, were you, Toto?â âDid you say a _brook_?â asked the beaver boy. âOf course Iâve been in a brook many a time. I even built a little dam across a brook onceââI and my brother Sniffy.â âHo, I didnât say _brook_ââI said _book_,â cried Don. âOf course I donât know much about such things myself, not being able to read. But a book is something with funny marks in it, and boys and girls like them very much.â âAre they good to eat?â asked Toto. âOh, no,â answered Don, laughing. âThen I donât believe they can be very good!â said Toto, âand I donât care to be in a book.â But you see he is in one, whether he likes it or not, and some day he may be glad of it. âWell, I must be going,â barked Don. âI want to see if I can find that camp where the tramps live. Tramps are no good. They come around the house where I live, near Blackie, the cat, and take our masterâs things. If I see the tramps Iâm going to bark at them and try to drive them away.â Then he trotted on through the woods, and Toto, after eating a little more bark, gathered some up in his paws, and, walking on his hind legs, brought it to where his father and Sniffy were waiting for him. âHereâs Toto,â said Sniffy. âWhere have you been?â asked Mr. Beaver. âOh, getting some sweet bark,â answered Toto, and he laid down on some clean moss the strips he had pulled off. âI met a dog, too.â âA dog!â cried Mr. Beaver. âMy goodness, I hope he isnât chasing after you!â and he looked through the trees as if afraid. âOh, this was Don, a good dog,â explained Toto. âHeâs only looking for some tramps. He wonât hurt any beavers.â âWell, if heâs a good dog, all right,â said the beaver daddy. âBut huntersâ dogs are badââtheyâll chase and bite you. I suppose they donât know any better.â âWhere were you when Cuppy whacked with his tail just before the big tree fell?â asked Sniffy, as he nibbled at some of the tender bark his brother had brought. âOh, Don and I hid under a big rock,â answered Toto. âI told him the whacking sound meant danger. He didnât know it. And itâs a good thing we hid when we did, for the tree would have crushed us if we hadnât been under the rock. Is our tree ready to finish gnawing down, Daddy?â âYes,â answered Mr. Beaver. âYou and Sniffy may start now, and cut a little more. Iâll tell you when to stop.â âBut I thought you were going to finish, Dad,â said Sniffy. âHe will, Sniffy, if he said so. But heâs letting us help a little more first so we can learn faster!â [Illustration: Crash! Bang! went the big tree.] So the beaver boys sat up on their tails again, and gnawed at the big treeââthe largest one they had ever helped to cut down. They gnawed and gnawed and gnawed with their orange-colored front teeth, and then Mr. Beaver said: âThatâs enough, boys. Iâll do the rest. But you may whack on the ground with your tails to warn the others out of the way.â So Toto and Sniffy, much delighted to do this, found a smooth place near a big rock, and then they went: âWhack! Whack! Whack!â âDanger! Danger!â cried a lot of other beavers who were working near by. âA tree is going to fall! Run, everybody! Danger!â âSee!â exclaimed Toto to his brother. âWe can make the old beavers run out of the way just as Cuppy made Don and me run.â âYes, you beaver boys are growing up,â said Mr. Beaver, who had waited to see that his two sons gave the danger signal properly. âYou are learning very well. Now here goes the tree.â He gave a few more bites, or gnaws, at the place where the tree was almost cut through, and then Mr. Beaver himself ran out of the way. âCrash! Bang!â went the big tree down in the forest. It broke down several other smaller trees, and finally was stretched out on the ground near the waters of Winding River. âWe helped do that!â said Toto to Sniffy, when the woods were again silent. âYes, you have learned how to cut down big trees,â said their father. âYou are no longer playing beaversââyou are working beavers. Now we must dig the canal to float the tree nearer the dam, as it is too heavy for us to roll or pull along, and we do not want to cut it.â I will tell you, a little farther on, how the beavers cut canals to float logs to the places where they want to use them. Just now all Iâll say about them is that it took some time to get the tree Toto and Sniffy had helped cut to the place where it was needed for the dam. The two beaver boys and many others of the wonderful animals were busy for a week or more. Then, one day, when the tree was in place, Toto asked his mother if he might go off into the woods and look for some more aspen bark, as all that had been stored in the stick house had been eaten. âYes, you may go,â said Mrs. Beaver. âBut donât go too far, nor stay too long.â âI wonât,â promised Toto. Then he waddled off through the woods, after having swum across the beaver pond, made by damming the river, and soon he found himself under the green trees. âI wonder if Iâll meet Don, the nice dog, or Whitie, the cat?â thought Toto. âLet me see, was Whitie her name? No, it was Blackie. I wonder if Iâll meet her, or that little girl who scared me so that day on the ice?â Toto looked off through the trees, but he saw neither Don nor Blackie. Toto found a place where some aspen bark grew on trees, and he gnawed off and ate as much as he wanted. Then he walked on a little farther and, pretty soon, he saw something in the woods that looked like a big beaver house. It was a heap of branches and limbs of trees, and over the outside were big sheets and strips of rough bark. âBut that canât be a beaver house,â thought Toto. âIt isnât near water, and no beavers would build a house unless it had water near it. I wonder what it is.â Toto sat up on his tail and looked at the queer object. Then all at once he heard rough voices speaking, and he saw some ragged men come out of the pile of bark. One or two of them had tin cans in their hands, and another was holding a pan over a fire that blazed on a flat rock. âOh, I know who they are!â said Toto to himself. âThese must be the tramps Don was looking for. This is the tramp camp! Iâve found
{'title': 'Toto, the Bustling Beaver: His Many Adventures by Richard Barnum', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}