The Tale of Brownie Beaver(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：Bailey, Arthur Scott

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The Tale of Brownie Beaver试读：

I

The village near one end of Pleasant

V

It was in this village that Brownie Beaver and his neighbors lived. It was a different sort of town, too, from the one where Farmer Green went each week. Over beyond Blue Mountain all the houses were built in a pond. And all their doors were under water. But nobody minded that because—like Brownie Beaver—everybody that dwelt there was a fine swimmer.

Years and years before Brownie's time his forefathers had come there, and finding that there were many trees in the neighborhood with the sort of bark they liked to eat—such as poplars, willows and box elders—they had decided that it was a good place to live. There was a small stream, too, which was really the beginning of Swift River. And by damming it those old settlers made a pond in which they could build their houses.

They had ideas of their own as to what a house should be like—and very good ideas they were—though you, perhaps, might not care for them at all. They wanted their houses to be surrounded by water, because they thought they were safer when built in that manner. And they always insisted that a door leading into a house should be far beneath the surface of the water, for they believed that that made a house safer too.

To you such an idea may seem very strange. But if you were chased by an enemy you might be glad to be able to swim under water, down to the bottom of a pond, and slip inside a door which led to a winding hall, which in its turn led upwards into your house.

Of course, your enemy might be able to swim as well as you. But maybe he would think twice—or even three times—before he went prowling through your crooked hall. For if you had enormous, strong, sharp teeth—with which you could gnaw right through a tree—he would not care to have you seize him as he poked his head around a corner in a dark passage of a strange house.

It was in a house of that kind that Brownie Beaver lived. And he built it himself, because he said he would rather have a neat, new house than one of the big, old dwellings that had been built many years before, when his great-great-grandfather had helped throw the dam across the stream.

The dam was there still. It was so old that trees were growing on it. And there was an odd thing about it: it was never finished. Though Brownie Beaver was a young chap, he worked on the dam sometimes, like all his neighbors. You see, the villagers kept making the dam wider. And since it was built of sticks and mud, the water sometimes washed bits of it away: so it had to be kept in repair.

If Brownie Beaver and his friends had neglected their dam, they would have waked up some day and found that their pond was empty; and without any water to hide their doorways they would have been safe no longer.

They would have had no place, either, to store their winter's food. For they were in the habit of cutting down trees and saving the bark and branches too, in order to have plenty to eat when cold weather came and the ice closed their pond.

Some of their food they carried into their houses through a straight hall which was made for that very purpose. And some of the branches they fastened under water, near the dam. It was just like putting green things into a refrigerator, so they will keep.

Now you see why Brownie Beaver would no more have thought of buildinghis house on dry land than you would think of building one in a pond.Everybody likes his own way best. And it never once occurred toBrownie Beaver that his way was the least bit strange.

Perhaps it was because his family had always lived in that fashion.

II

Brownie Beaver could do many things that other forest-people (except his own relations) were not able to do at all. For instance, cutting down a tree was something that nobody but one of the Beaver family would think of attempting. But as for Brownie Beaver—if he ever saw a tree that he wanted to cut down he set to work at once, without even going home to get any tools. And the reason for that was that he always had his tools with him. For strange as it may seem, he used his teeth to do all his wood-cutting.

The first thing to be done when you set out to fell a tree with your teeth is to strip off the bark around the bottom of the trunk, so that a white band encircles it. At least, that was the way Brownie Beaver always began. And no doubt he knew what he was about.

After he had removed the band of bark Brownie began to gnaw away chips of wood, where the white showed. And as he gnawed, he slowly sidled round and round the tree, until at last only the heart of the tree was left to keep the tree from toppling over.

Then Brownie Beaver would stop his gnawing and look all about, to pick out a place where he wanted the tree to fall. And as soon as Brownie had made up his mind about that, he quickly gnawed a few more chips out of the heart of the tree on the side toward the spot where he intended it to come toppling down upon the ground.

Brownie Beaver would not have to gnaw long before the tree would begin to lean. All the time it leaned more and more. And the further over it sagged, the faster it tipped. Luckily, Brownie Beaver always knew just the right moment to jump out of the way before the tree fell.

If you had ever seen him you might have thought he was frightened, because he never failed to run away and hide as the tree crashed down with a sound almost like thunder.

But Brownie was not at all frightened. He was merely careful. Knowing what a loud noise the falling tree would make, and that it might lead a man (or some other enemy) to come prowling around, to see what had happened, Brownie used to stay hidden until he felt quite sure that no one was going to trouble him.

You can understand that waiting, as he did, was no easy matter when you stop to remember that one of Brownie's reasons for cutting down a tree was that he wanted to eat the tender bark to be found in the tree-top. It was exactly like knowing your dinner was on the table, all ready for you, and having to hide in some dark corner for half an hour, before going into the dining-room. You know how hungry you would get, if you had to do that.

Well, Brownie Beaver used to get just as hungry as any little boy or girl. How he did tear at the bark, when he finally began to eat! And how full he stuffed his mouth! And how he did enjoy his meal! But everybody will admit that he had a right to enjoy his dinner, for he certainly worked hard enough to get it.

III

Like the dam that held back the water to form the pond where Brownie Beaver lived, Brownie's house was made of sticks and mud. He cut the sticks himself, from trees that grew near the bank of the pond; and after dragging and pushing them to the water's edge he swam with them, without much trouble, to the center of the pond, where he wished to build his house. Of course, the sticks floated in the water; so Brownie found that part of his work to be quite easy.

He had chosen that spot in the center of the pond because there was something a good deal like an island there—only it did not rise quite out of the water. A good, firm place on which to set his house—Brownie Beaver considered it.

While he was building his house Brownie gathered his winter's food at the same time. Anyone might think he would have found it difficult to do two things at once like that. But while he was cutting sticks to build his new house it was no great trouble to peel the bark off them. The bark, you know, was what Brownie Beaver always ate. And when he cut sticks for his house there was only one thing about which he had to be careful; he had to be particular to use only certain kinds of wood. Poplar, cottonwood, or willow; birch, elm, box elder or aspen—those were the trees which bore bark that he liked. But if he had cut down a hickory or an ash or an oak tree he wouldn't have been able to get any food from them at all because the bark was not the sort he cared for. That was lucky, in a way, because the wood of those trees was very hard and Brownie would have had much more work cutting them down.

A good many of Brownie Beaver's neighbors thought he was foolish to go to the trouble of building a new house, when there were old ones to be had. And there was a lazy fellow called Tired Tim who laughed openly at Brownie.

"When you're older you'll know better than to work like that," Tired Tim told him. "Why don't you do the way I did?" he asked. "I dug a tunnel in the bank of the pond; and it's a good enough house for anybody. It's much easier than building a house of sticks and mud."

But Brownie told Tired Tim that he didn't care to live in a hole in the bank.

"Nobody but a very lazy person would be willing to have a house like that," Brownie said.

Tired Tim only laughed all the harder.

"Old Grandaddy Beaver has been talking to you," he remarked. "I saw him taking you over to the dam day before yesterday and telling you where to work on it. Of course, that's all right if you're willing to work for the whole village. But I say, let others do the work! As for me, I've never put a single stick nor a single armful of mud on that dam; and what's more, I never intend to, either.

"My tunnel in the bank suits me very well. Of course, it may not be so airy in summer as a house such as you're making for yourself. But I don't live in my house in summer. So what's the difference to me? In summer I go up the stream, or down—just as it suits me—and I see something of the world and have a fine time. There's nothing like travel, you know, to broaden one," said Tired Tim.

Brownie Beaver stopped just a moment and looked at the lazy fellow. He was certainly broad enough, Brownie thought. He was so fat that his sides stuck far out. But it was no wonder—for he never did any work.

"You'd better take my advice," Tired Tim told Brownie.

But Brownie Beaver had returned to his wood-cutting. He didn't even stop to answer. To him, working was just fun. And building a fine house was as good as any game.

IV

The rain had fallen steadily for two days and two nights-not just a gentle drizzle, but a heavy downpour.

For some time it did not in the least disturb Brownie Beaver and his neighbors—that is to say, all but one of them. For there was a very old gentleman in the village known as Grandaddy Beaver who began to worry almost as soon as it began to rain.

"We're a-going to have a freshet," he said to everybody he met. "I've seen 'em start many a time and I can always tell a freshet almost as soon as I see it coming."

Grandaddy Beaver's friends paid no heed to his warning. And some of them were so unkind as to laugh when the old gentleman crawled on top of his house and began to mend it.

"You young folks can poke fun at me if you want to," said Grandaddy Beaver, "but I'm a-going right ahead and make my house as strong as I can. For when the freshet gets here I don't want my home washed away."

All day long people would stop to watch the old fellow at work upon his roof. And everybody thought it was a great joke—until the second day came and everybody noticed that it was raining just as hard as ever.

But no one except Grandaddy Beaver had ever heard of a freshet at that time of year. So even then nobody else went to work on his house, though some people did stop smiling. A freshet, you know, is a serious thing.

As the second day passed, the rain seemed to fall harder. And still Grandaddy Beaver kept putting new sticks on the roof of his house and plastering mud over them. And at last Brownie Beaver began to think that perhaps the old gentleman was right, after all, and that maybe everybody else was wrong.

So Brownie went home and set to work. And all his neighbors at once began to smile at him.

But Brownie Beaver didn't mind that.

"My roof needed mending, anyhow," he said. "And if we should have a freshet. I'll be ready for it. And if we don't have one, there'll be no harm done."

[Illustration: Mr. Crow Called Down the Chimney]

Now, all this time the water had been rising slowly. But that was no more than everyone expected, since it was raining so hard. But when the second night came, the water began to rise very fast. It rose so quickly that several families found their bedroom floors under water almost before they knew it.

Then old Grandaddy Beaver went through the village and stopped at every door.

"What do you think about it now?" he asked. "Is it a freshet or isn't it?"

In the houses where the water had climbed above the bedroom floors the people all agreed that it was a freshet and that Grandaddy Beaver had been right all the time. But there were still plenty of people who thought the old gentleman was mistaken.

"The water won't come any higher," they said. "It never has, at this time of year." But they looked a bit worried, in spite of what they said.

"It's a-going to be the worst freshet that's happened since you were born," their caller croaked. "You mark my words!"

When he came to Brownie Beaver's house Grandaddy found that there was one person, at least, that had taken his advice.

"I see you're all ready for the freshet!" the old gentleman remarked."They laughed at me; but I was right," he said.

"They laughed at me, too," Brownie Beaver told him.

"There's nobody in this village that'll laugh again tonight," Grandaddy said very solemnly, "for there's a-going to be a flood before morning."VBROWNIE SAVES THE DAM

Brownie Beaver was always glad that he had taken Grandaddy's advice about the freshet. And Brownie's neighbors were glad that he had, too. For that was really the only thing that saved the village from being carried away by the flood of water that swept down upon the pond, after it had rained for two days and two nights.

The pond rose so quickly and the water rushed past so fast that people had to scramble out of their houses and begin working on them, to keep them from being washed away.

That rush of water meant only one thing. The pond was full and running over! And just as likely as not the dam would be carried away—the dam on which Grandaddy Beaver had worked when he was a youngster, and on which his own grandaddy had worked before him. It would take years and years to build another such dam as that.

Now, with almost everybody working on his own house, there was almost no one left to work upon the dam. But people never stopped to think about that. They never once remembered that out of the whole village old Grandaddy and Brownie Beaver were the only persons whose houses had been made ready for the freshet and that those two were the only people with nothing to do at home.

"There'll be plenty to help save the dam," everybody said to himself."I'll just work on my house."

Now, Brownie Beaver knew that there was nothing more he could do to make his house safe, so he swam over to the dam, expecting to find a good many of his neighbors there. But old Grandaddy Beaver was the only other person he found. And he seemed worried.

"It's a great pity!" he said to Brownie. "Here's this fine dam, which has taken so many years to build, and it's a-going to be washed away—you mark my words!"

"What makes you think that?" asked Brownie.

"There's nobody here to do anything," said Grandaddy Beaver. "The spillways of this dam ought to be made as big as possible, to let the freshet pass through. But I can't do it, for I can't swim as well as I could once."

Brownie Beaver looked at the rushing water which poured over the top of the dam in a hundred places and was already carrying off mud and sticks, eating the dam away before his very eyes.

"I'll save the dam!" he cried. "You?" Grandaddy Beaver exclaimed. "Why, what do you think you can do?" Being so old, he couldn't help believing that other people were too young to do difficult things.

"Watch me and I'll show you!" Brownie Beaver told him. And without saying another word he swam to the nearest spillway and began making it bigger.

Sometimes he had to fight the freshet madly, to keep from being swept over the dam himself. Sometimes, too, as he stood on the dam it crumbled beneath him and he found himself swimming again.

How many narrow escapes he had that day Brownie Beaver could never remember. When they happened, he didn't have time to count them, he was working so busily. And if old Grandaddy Beaver hadn't told everyone afterward, how Brownie saved the great dam from being swept away, and how hard he had worked, and how he had swum fearlessly into the torrent, people wouldn't have known anything about it.

To be sure, they had noticed that the water went down almost as suddenly as it rose. But they hadn't stopped to think that there must have been some reason for that. And when they learned that Brownie Beaver was the reason, the whole village gave him a vote of thanks.

They wanted to give him a gold-headed cane, too. But they were unable to find one anywhere.

When Brownie Beaver heard of that he said it was just as well, because he seldom walked far on land and there wasn't much use in a person's carrying a cane when he swam, anyhow. Although it was sometimes done, he had always considered it a silly practice—and one that he would not care to follow.

VI

Brownie Beaver liked to know what was going on in the world. But living far from Pleasant Valley as he did, he seldom heard any news before it was quite old.

"I wish—" he said to Mr. Crow one day, when that old gentleman was making him a visit—"I wish someone would start a newspaper in this neighborhood."

Mr. Crow told Brownie that he would be glad to bring him an old newspaper whenever he happened to find one. "Thank you!" Brownie Beaver said. "You're very kind. But an old newspaper would be of no use to me."

"Why not?" Mr. Crow inquired. "They make very good beds, I've been told. And I suppose that is what you want one for."

"Not at all!" Brownie replied. "I'd like to know what's happening over in Pleasant Valley. It takes so long for news to reach us here in our pond that it's often hardly worth listening to when we hear it—it's so old. Now, what I'd really prefer is a newspaper that would tell me everything that's going to happen a week later."

Mr. Crow said he never heard of a newspaper like that.

"Well, somebody ought to start one," Brownie Beaver answered.

Mr. Crow thought deeply for some minutes without saying a word. And at last He cried suddenly:

"I have an idea!"

"Have you?" Brownie Beaver exclaimed. "What is it, Mr. Crow?"

"I'll be your newspaper!" Mr. Crow told him.

At that Brownie Beaver looked somewhat doubtful.

"That's very kind of you," he said. "But I'm afraid it wouldn't do me much good. You're so black that the ink wouldn't show on you at all—-unless," he added, "they use white ink to print on you."

"You don't understand," old Mr. Crow said. "What I mean is this: I'll fly over here once a week and tell you everything that's happened. Of course," he continued, "I can't very well tell you everything that is going to take place the following week. But I'll do my best."

Brownie Beaver was delighted. And when Mr. Crow asked him what day he wanted his newspaper Brownie said that Saturday afternoon would be a good time.

"That's the last day of the week," Brownie Beaver remarked, "so you ought to have plenty of news for me. You know, if you came the first day of the week there would be very little to tell."

"That's so!" said Mr. Crow. "Well say 'Saturday,' then. And you shall have your newspaper without fail—unless," he explained—"unless there should be a bad storm, or unless I should be ill. And, of course, if Farmer Green should want me to help him in his cornfield, I wouldn't be able to come. There might be other things, too, to keep me at home, which I can't think of just now," said Mr. Crow.

Again Brownie Beaver looked a bit doubtful.

"I hope you'll try to be regular," he told Mr. Crow. "When a person takes a newspaper he doesn't like to be disappointed, you know."

Old Mr. Crow said that he hoped nothing would prevent his coming toBrownie's house every Saturday afternoon.

"There's only one more thing I can think of," he croaked, "that would make it impossible for me to be here. And that is if I should lose

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