There were plenty of little low houses in the pond, and in each one
lived a family of beavers. It was the delight of the little beavers to
explore every corner of the pond, from the brook at the upper end to
the dam at the lower end.
Very likely the little fellows believed that the dam had always been
there. But, in fact, the old beavers had built it themselves. When they
first came to that spot in the woods, they found only a brook flowing
over a hard, gravelly bottom. They first cut down a bush and floated it
along till it stuck fast between a rock and a clump of trees. Next they
cut other bushes, and carried down poles and branches, till they had a
tangle of brush stretching from one bank to the other. Upon this they
piled sticks and stones and mud, and then more sticks and stones and
mud, and then still more sticks and stones and mud.
At last the dam was so high and solid that the water could not flow
through. So it spread out in a pond above the dam till it was deep
enough to trickle over the top and tinkle away in a little brook under
the trees.
Tiny islands were left here and there in the pond. The old beavers
built their houses on the islands or on the bank. First each mother
and father dug two tunnels from the bottom of the pond up through the
earth to the floor of their house. One tunnel was to be used when going
in and out during the summer. The other tunnel led to their winter
pantry under the water. This pantry was to be a pile of fresh sticks
cut in the woods every autumn.
[Illustration: THE BEAVERS AT WORK]
Around the two holes in the floor the beavers laid logs and stones in
a circle. Upon this foundation they piled sticks and sod to form walls
and a roof. Then they plastered the house all over with mud. At the
top of the roof they left a small hole, covered only with a tangle of
sticks. This was for fresh air. Last of all they swam inside and made
the walls even by gnawing off the sharp ends of the wood. Then the
house was ready to be furnished with beds of leaves and grasses.
Perhaps during the happy summer the baby beavers believed that play was
the most delightful thing in the world. But soon the father beavers
came strolling back to the village to cut down trees for the winter.
Then the little fellows found that work was even better fun than play.
One night the little beavers followed their parents into the woods and
watched them cut down a tree. The father stood up on his hind legs,
propping himself with his tail, and began to cut a notch around the
trunk. The mother helped on the other side. They gnawed upwards and
downwards, digging out huge chips with their chisel teeth. The circle
grew deeper and deeper, till the father’s head was almost hidden
whenever he thrust it in to take a fresh bite. When finally the wood
cracked and the tree-top began to sway, all the family scampered away
to the pond. They dived for the tunnel and hid in the house for a
while. There was danger that some hungry wildcat had heard the crash of
the branches and had hurried there to catch them for its supper.
As soon as it seemed safe to do so, the beavers paddled out again and
trotted away to the fallen tree. The parents trimmed off the branches
and cut the trunk into pieces short enough to carry. The father seized
a thick pole in his teeth and swung it over his shoulders. As he
dragged it towards the pond he kept his head twisted to one side, so
that the end of the pole trailed on the ground.
It happened that he reached the pond just in time to help mend the dam
with his thick pole. A pointed log had jammed a hole in the dam. The
water was beginning to pour through the hole with a rush. If the pond
should run dry, the doors of the tunnels would be left in plain sight.
Then probably a wolf, or some other enemy, would hide there to catch
the beavers on their way from the woods to their houses.
The old father pushed his pole into the water; then he jumped in, and
taking hold of it with his teeth, he swam out above the hole. When he
let go, the water carried the pole squarely across the break in the
dam. The other beavers cut bushes and floated them down to weave across
the hole. After that they scooped up mud and stones to plaster the dam
till not a drop trickled through the mended places.
The next work to be done that autumn was to gather food for the winter.
Some of the trees with the juiciest bark grew too far away to be
easily dragged to the pond. All the grown-up beavers set to work to
dig a canal. They dug and scooped and gnawed off roots, and dragged
out stones, till they had made a long canal more than a foot deep. The
water flowed into this from the pond. Then it was easy enough to float
wood from the juicy trees down to the beaver village.
Even the babies could help in towing the wood down the canal and across
the pond to the different houses. Some of the wood became so heavy
with soaked-up water that it sank to the bottom beside the doors, and
could be packed in a solid pile as easily as on land. Most of the wood,
however, kept light enough to float. Instead of heaping new sticks on
top, the beavers pushed them under the top branches. Then more was
pressed under that, and more under that, till the pile reached to the
bottom. In the winter, of course, the top sticks could not be eaten,
because they would be frozen fast in the ice.
All winter long the beavers lived quietly in their little homes under
the snow. Most of the time they slept, each on his own soft bed in the
dark. Whenever they were hungry, they paddled down the tunnel which
led to the woodpile. Gnawing off some sticks they swam back with the
bundles under their chins. They used the middle of the room for a
dining-table. There they nibbled the bark. Then they carried the peeled
sticks back into the pond. They did not like to have rubbish left on
the floor.
So the winter months slipped away. At last spring melted the ice on the
pond. Here and there in the black water little brown heads came popping
up. They went ploughing towards shore, leaving the rippled water
stretching behind. Up the banks scrambled the beavers,--mother beavers
and father beavers, big brother beavers and big sister beavers, and all
the little beavers who had been babies the year before. Away roamed
the fathers up the brook, to have a good time travelling all summer
long. The grown-up brothers and sisters began to build dams and houses
of their own, while the little fellows wandered into the woods to find
their dinners of tender buds and twigs.
--JULIA AUGUSTA SWARTZ.
_From “Wilderness Babies,” by permission of Little, Brown & Company._
* * * * *
There’s not a flower that decks the vale,
There’s not a beam that lights the mountain,
There’s not a shrub that scents the gale,
There’s not a wind that stirs the fountain,
But in its use or beauty shows
True love to us, and love undying.