TOTO IN A TRAP
Toto looked up in the tree from which the mewing noise came. There he
saw a black cat. The cat sat in a place where a branch joined the main
trunk of the tree, and Toto wondered why, if she got up there, she
could not get down.
“What happened to you?” asked the beaver boy.
“A dog chased me,” was the answer. “I was out walking in the fields,
and a dog ran along after me. I was so frightened that I scampered as
fast as I could. Then I ran up this tree. I hardly knew what I was
doing, or how I got up so high. But here I am, and though it seemed
easy to get up, I’m afraid to try to get down. I might slip and fall.”
“Did you walk up the tree?” asked Toto, wondering why she couldn’t walk
down again.
“No, I stuck my claws into the bark and pulled myself up,” answered the
black cat. “But it’s harder to go down. I don’t know what to do! I wish
that dog had let me alone.”
“Was the dog who chased you named Don?” asked Toto. “I know him.”
“Do you? Why, so do I!” exclaimed Blackie. “No, it wasn’t Don who
chased me. He and I are good friends. This was a strange dog, and I
don’t like him. He has made a lot of trouble for me. Maybe I’ll never
get out of this tree, and I’ll never again see the kind lady and little
girl I live with.”
“Oh, yes, you will!” said Toto cheerfully. “I’ll help you get down out
of the tree.”
“Can you climb up here?” asked Blackie.
“No, I can’t climb trees, but I can gnaw them down,” answered the
beaver boy. “You just wait. This is a poplar tree, and the bark is very
good to eat. You just wait up there. I’ll gnaw through the tree, it
will fall, and you can then easily get to the ground.”
“But when the tree falls won’t I get hurt?” asked Blackie.
“No, for I’ll cut the tree so it will fall in among the bushes,”
answered Toto, who, by this time, could make a tree fall in any
direction he liked. “The bushes will be a sort of cushion, like the
cushion of soft grass and chips in our stick house.”
Toto took his position at the foot of the tree, half way up in which
was Blackie, the cat. Propping himself up on his tail, and clasping his
forepaws around the trunk of the tree, which was about as large around
as a rolling pin, Toto began to gnaw.
In a few minutes Toto had almost cut through the trunk.
“Oh, the tree is beginning to fall!” mewed Blackie.
“That’s what I want it to do,” answered Toto. “Don’t be afraid. Sit
tight! You will not be hurt.”
The tree was swaying slightly, for the trunk had almost been cut
through by the hard-working beaver boy. But he had cut it in the proper
way, and it was falling toward a clump of thick bushes.
Blackie dug her claws into the soft bark and held on as tightly as
she could. She was a little afraid, but she need not have been, for
Toto knew what he was about. Very slowly and gently the tree swayed
over. It fell among the bushes with hardly a crash, the boughs and the
underbrush making a cushion. And now the trunk was so close to the
ground that Blackie easily leaped down.
“Oh, thank you, very much, for helping me,” she mewed to Toto. “I
thought I’d never get down, or see my kind lady mistress again. She is
very sad these days, and if she lost me she would be more sad.”
“What is she sad about?” asked Toto.
“Because her house was broken into the other day by some bad men, she
thinks,” explained Blackie. “They took away a box of jewelry she had
hidden under the bed. And in the box was a bracelet for a nice little
girl. This little girl pets me and gives me milk when she comes to see
her grandmother, with whom I now live. And sometimes I go to stay at
the little girl’s house.”
“Why, how surprising!” exclaimed Toto. “I think I know the house you
mean! I saw some ragged men go in there and come out with a box. A boy
chased them and then the boy chased me.”
“What did the men do with the box?” asked Blackie. “Oh, how exciting!
Maybe we can find it and make my mistress happy again.”
Toto slowly flapped his flat tail.
“The men went into the woods with the box,” he said. “That is all I
know.”
“What woods?” asked Blackie.
“Well, the woods not very far from here,” answered the beaver.
“I wish I could find the box,” mewed Blackie. “I don’t care for jewelry
myself, though I like a red ribbon tied on my neck, as the little girl
sometimes ties it. But if I could find the box of jewelry it would make
Millie and her grandmother happy.”
“I wish I could help you,” said Toto. “But I don’t know where the box
is. But tell me about Don. Have you seen him lately? He wanted to
catch the tramps.”
“No, I haven’t seen Don for some time,” explained Blackie. “He lives in
another house with a boy, and sometimes this boy comes to see Millie’s
grandmother. The old lady is his grandmother, too. Don and I are good
friends.”
“He is a nice dog,” said Toto. “Well, as long as I have cut down this
tree I may as well eat some of the bark. Will you have some?”
“No, thank you,” answered Blackie. “I don’t eat bark, I drink milk.”
“Bark is better,” said the beaver. “But I suppose it wouldn’t do for us
all to eat the same thing. There wouldn’t be enough. Now, do you know
your way home?”
“Oh, yes, I can find my way back across the fields to the house where I
live,” said the cat. “I hope the tramps don’t come again. But call and
see me sometime.”
“Thank you,” answered Toto. “I will. But I don’t go out in the fields
much. It is safer for us beavers in the woods near the water.”
“I don’t like water,” said the black cat. “But thank you once more for
getting me down out of the tree. I’ll tell Don, the next time I see
him, how kind you are to me.”
“Remember me to him,” begged Toto.
“I will!” mewed Blackie. Then she walked off toward the field, and
Toto began to eat some of the poplar bark.
You remember I told you I would put in this story something about how
beavers dig canals to float the logs they cut down to the dam. And I
guess this is a good place for that.
With their paws the beavers dig a ditch in the dirt, starting it from
the place where the fallen tree lies, and heading it toward the waters
of their pond. The beavers are fast diggers, too, almost as fast as
they are gnawers, and many of them, working together, will dig a little
canal in a few days. They take out the dirt and stones, placing them
to one side. They carry the dirt and stones out of their way in their
front paws.
Foot by foot the canal, which is yet only a dry ditch in the ground,
is brought to the edge of the beaver pond. Then the little animals cut
through the remaining wall of earth, so the water from the pond flows
into the canal. The water goes all the way back to where the big tree
trunk lies on the bank of the little canal. The beavers now, pushing
all together, roll the heavy log into the canal which, after this, can
easily be floated through the canal to the beaver pond, and used to
make the dam bigger and stronger.
One day Mr. Beaver called out and said:
“Come on, Toto and Sniffy. You must help Cuppy and some of the others
dig canals to-day. It will soon be winter again, and we want to get a
lot of wood and bark stored away before cold weather comes.”
Beavers do not sleep all through the winter as bears, and some other
animals, do. The beavers stay awake, move about, and have to eat. So
they need plenty of food.
“Digging canals is fun!” laughed Toto. “I like it; don’t you, Sniffy?”
“Yes,” answered his brother, “I do. Here comes Dumple!” he added.
“Let’s have some fun with him!”
So the three beaver boys tumbled about on the ground as they went along
to where the canal was being dug. There they found Cuppy and many other
animals at work, for several large trees had been cut down, and they
must be floated in canals to the dam.
Each of the beaver boys was given a certain part of the work to do, and
Toto was soon busy with the others. Foot by foot the canal was dug.
Now of course beaver boys don’t like to work all the while, any more
than real boys do, and Toto was a real beaver boy. So, after he had
dug a bit, he looked around, and, seeing no one near him, he said to
himself:
“I’m going to see if I can’t find some willow bark to eat. Somehow
to-day I seem to want a bit of willow bark.”
He climbed out of the canal, which had no water in as yet, and walked,
or waddled, off through the woods. And soon Toto was going to have an
adventure that was not a nice one.
He was walking along, thinking of what fun he would have that evening
on the mud slide, when, all at once, he seemed to smell something very
good. It was a piece of apple, and Toto had not eaten an apple for many
days, as none grew in the woods.
“Oh, how good that is!” he exclaimed. “Some one must have dropped it
here under the trees.”
Toto looked about and sniffed until he saw a small, red apple. It
seemed to be on top of a little pile of leaves.
“Oh, how good!” cried Toto. He walked up to the apple, and then, all of
a sudden, something happened! There was a clicking sound, and Toto felt
a pain in his leg. Then he knew what it was.
“Oh, dear, I’m caught in a trap!” cried the beaver boy.