Sometimes they slid separately, and often all three of them would go
down together. Then Toodle got a long piece of birch bark for a sled,
and they all sat on that, holding their tails up in the air, and down
they went, whizzing along until they hit the water with a splash.
Oh, it was great fun!
Then, all of a sudden, when Toodle and Noodle had gone sliding down
together, leaving Crackie standing alone on the top of the muddy hill,
to come down after them, all of a sudden, up out of the water came the
bad old skillery-scalery alligator, and before Toodle or Noodle knew
what was happening the savage creature, with the double-jointed tail,
had grabbed them both in his paws.
"Oh, let us go! Let us go!" cried Toodle.
"Yes, please let us go!" begged Noodle, and he tried to make his tail
go "whack!" on the water, the way his grandpa had taught him to do
to call for help. But the alligator held him too tightly, and Noodle
couldn't move even his nose.
"Oh, will no one help us?" shouted Toodle.
"No, there is no one here to help you," barked the alligator, just like
a dog. "I am going to take you off to my den!"
"Oh, ho! No, you're not!" cried little Crackie, up on top of the
mud-hill, and with that she came sliding down so fast that she suddenly
hit that alligator right on the end of his nose, and that made tears
come into his eyes, and whenever that happens to a skillery-scalery
alligator he has to go right away to the dentist. It was that way with
this one, and, as soon as Crackie bumped him, he dropped Toodle and
Noodle, letting them go, and away the bad creature swam to have a tooth
pulled out, which served him right, I think.
So that's how Crackie saved Toodle and Noodle by sliding down the
mud-hill and bumping the alligator. Then the beaver children had a lot
more fun in the water and the alligator didn't bother them any more
that day. And in the story after this, if the merry-go-round doesn't
dance a jig on the roof, and wake up the little mouse in the pantry,
I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle going to school.
STORY X
TOODLE AND NOODLE AT SCHOOL
"Hark! What's that?" cried Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, as
he rolled over in his bed of clean, white pine-splinters one morning.
"Did you hear that, Noodle?"
"Indeed I did," answered the other beaver boy. "Listen, Toodle."
They both listened, and they heard a bell ringing off in the distance:
"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!"
"Fire!" cried Noodle. "It's a fire. Let's get up and--"
"Fire! That's no fire!" said Toodle. "That's the school bell that's
ringing, and we have to go to school today, Noodle, my boy. Don't you
remember what Grandpa Whackum said to us?"
"Indeed I do," answered Noodle. "So this is the day we have to start
school? I wonder if our little sister Crackie is coming?"
"I don't believe she is old enough," answered Toodle. "It would be fun
if she could, though. But did you hear anything else besides the bell,
Noodle?"
Then both the little beaver boys listened again, just as the telephone
girl does when you talk to her, and they heard some one calling:
"Hi there, Noodle! Hi there, Toodle! Time to get up! You have to go to
school today." It was their papa.
"All right!" called the two beaver boys very politely, as all animal
children do. "We're coming."
Quickly they washed their faces and paws in the water of the beaver
pond, and then they were ready for breakfast. They had water-lily
pancakes with birch bark syrup on, and winter-green muffins with maple
sugar, and their mamma, Mrs. Flat-tail, also put them up a nice lunch
of watercress bread with willow bark jam in between the slices.
"I wish I could go to school," said Crackie, the little beaver girl
baby, whom the two boys had found in a hollow stump one day. "I'd like
to go and learn how to make mud pies."
"Some day you may, my dear," said Mrs. Flat-tail, as she hurried about
the kitchen, making some nice warm ginger-root soup for Grandpa Whackum.
So Toodle and Noodle started for school. They were a little bit behind
the other animal children, for the school had opened a week or so
before this, but then the beaver boys had to practice their swimming,
and gnawing and other lessons, which is what kept them home.
But now they were going to school, and as they waddled along, wondering
what sort of lessons they would have to recite, they met a number of
their friends. Bully No-tail, the frog, was hopping on the path by
the water, and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck, was swimming in the
water, as were Toodle and Noodle. Overhead, also on his way to school,
was Dickie Chipchip, the sparrow boy.
The school where Toodle and Noodle went was in an old boat that floated
around the beaver pond, just like the grocery store that one of the
animals kept. And the school-boat, not being tied fast anywhere, was
never in the same place any two mornings. Sometimes it would be here,
and sometimes it would be there.
And on that account the animal children were often late. They would
start for the boat-school at the place where it had been the day
before. But in the night the wind might have blown it far off, so by
the time they found it the animals would be late for their lessons. But
the old gentleman teacher, Mr. Water Rat, did not mind that much, and
he never kept any of the children in for being late. Sometimes Woodie
and Waddie Chuck, the groundhog boys, would be so late that they only
got to school just as it was letting out for the day. That was jolly.
So, as I said, Toodle and Noodle started for school. On the way they
had lots of fun with their animal friends, and once, when Sammie
Littletail, the rabbit boy, was chasing Toodle, the beaver boy jumped
into the water and swam a long way, so Sammie couldn't tag him.
But the school bell kept ringing and ringing, and finally Toodle and
Noodle were at the old floating boat where they were to study their
lessons. It had not drifted very far in the night, so no one was late
this morning.
"Now, children, attention!" said old Mr. Water Rat, who kept the
school. "We will first have a lesson in arithmetic, or number work.
"Toodle Flat-tail, you may tell me this. If you had a pear and your
brother, Noodle, had two apples, how many would there be altogether?"
"Do you mean if we were very hungry?" asked Toodle, slowly like.
"Why, what has that to do with it?" asked the school teacher rat. "Two
apples and one pear are always the same, whether you are hungry or not."
"Oh, no," said Toodle, as politely as he knew how. "For if Noodle and
I were hungry there wouldn't be any left no matter how many pears or
apples there were at first. We would eat them up, you see, teacher."
"I see," said the teacher. "That is very good. You may go up head,
Toodle." So that is how Toodle got up to the head of his class the
first day in school. Wasn't that good?
Well, then, the teacher asked Noodle a question. Said Professor Water
Rat:
"If you had five pennies, and your mamma should give you ten pennies
more, how many pennies would you have?"
"Not any," said Noodle, as politely as he knew how.
"Why not?" asked the teacher. "Do not five pennies and ten pennies make
fifteen pennies?"
"Maybe," said Noodle; "but, please sir, if I had fifteen pennies
I'd buy three ice cream cones--one for Toodle and one for my sister
Crackie, and one for myself, so I would not have any pennies, you see."
"Very good," said the professor rat. "You may also go up head, Noodle."
So Noodle did, and he and Toodle sat in the same seat. They were quite
proud, too, at getting up head their first day in school. Not too
proud, you know, but just proud enough.
Well, all of a sudden, as the animal children were studying away very
quietly, a voice called:
"I want Toodle! I want Noodle!"
Everybody looked up surprised like. The two beaver boys were sort of
scared, too.
"Oh, dear!" cried Noodle, and he looked for a window so he could jump
out into the pond and swim away.
"It's a bear after us!" cried Toodle, jumping up.
The professor rat teacher got out his ruler to fight the bear, if he
should come in, but instead, there walked into the school only little
Crackie, the baby beaver girl. She had her rubber doll with her.
"I want Toodle and Noodle!" said Crackie. "I'm tired of staying home
and playing all alone. Please teacher, can't you let them out of school
and amuse me?"
Well, you should have heard the animal children laugh at that! The idea
of a little girl beaver coming to get her brothers out of school to
play with her! Did you ever hear of anything like that? I guess not!
Even Professor Rat had to laugh, and there was so much fun that no one
could study.
"Can't Toodle and Noodle come home with me?" asked Crackie again.
"Well, pretty soon," said the teacher. "You just sit down here,
Crackie, and make some pictures on the blackboard."
So Crackie came to school also, you see, though it was not intended,
and pretty soon, when school was nearly out a bad old fox stuck his
nose in the window, looking to see if he could grab Lulu Wibblewobble,
the duck girl. But Crackie Flat-tail threw a piece of chalk at him,
and the fox was glad to run off and not come back any more that week,
fearing he was going to get a bad chalk-mark, you see.
So that's how Crackie did good by going to school to get her brothers.
And when lessons were done she went out with them and had a good time.
And on the next page, if the door knob doesn't turn over in its sleep
and roll out of the window, I'll tell you about Crackie breaking her
doll.
STORY XI
HOW CRACKIE BROKE HER DOLL
I may as well tell you at the very beginning, for you would find it out
sooner or later anyhow, I suppose, so I may as well tell you at the
beginning, that this is partly a story for girls, and partly a story
for boys. The girl part is about the doll, and the boy part is about
breaking it, and after that--
Well, I guess I had better tell you the story, and let you see for
yourselves what happened afterward.
The reason this story is to be both for girls and boys is because my
little girl asked me to write a story with a doll in it. I said I would.
And right after that my little boy, who heard her, said:
"And please put a scary part in it for me."
You see boys like the scary part. So that's why this is a sort of
double-jointed story--one part for girls and the other for boys.
Now that I have explained it I will begin.
One day Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, hurried home from
school with his brother Noodle, and said:
"I know what let's do! We'll get in our play-boat, and go off on a
voyage. Maybe we'll find an island where oranges and bananas and
cocoanuts grow, and we can play we're shipwrecked, and pirates and all
like that."
"All right--let's," agreed Noodle. "Shall we take our sister Crackie
along?"
"No, not this time," said Toodle. "She might be afraid if we played
pirates, or anything like that. Besides, she is having a good time with
her doll. We'll leave her home."
And, truly, Crackie, who was the baby beaver girl, who was always
dropping things, and breaking or cracking them (without the least in
the world meaning to), Crackie, I say, was playing with her doll. It
was a new wooden doll, made from a part of a birch tree that Grandpa
Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all, had gnawed down for the little
girl. Crackie's rubber doll was asleep under the refrigerator, where
she would be nice and cool.
So Toodle and Noodle started off in their play-boat which was a log
hollowed out so they could sit in it. They used their tails for sails.
Now those beaver boys could swim much faster and better than any boat
you ever saw, and that's why it is so queer that they wanted to go off
in a hollowed-out log. But they did. Why, do you know, I have seen real
boys who would rather get on an old raft made of boards, and paddle
around in a mud puddle, getting all wet--they would rather do that
almost any day than go to school, or have their hair cut or a tooth
pulled. Isn't that odd?
Well, anyhow, as the peanut man sometimes says, Toodle and Noodle
sailed off and Crackie stayed home and played with her doll. She made a
new dress for it out of part of a clothespin and a lead pencil. And she
made a hat out of a strawberry box, trimming it with shavings. That's
what it is to have a wooden doll, you see.
And now, for a minute or so, I'll tell you what happened to Noodle and
Toodle. This is where the scary part comes in, so cuddle down in papa's
or mamma's lap if you like, though it isn't going to be so very scary.
The two little beaver boys sailed on and on in their play-boat and
pretty soon they were nearly across the big beaver pond. And then they
saw an island. It had some trees growing on it, and it looked to be
a good place to pretend being shipwrecked, and pirates, and all like
that, and Toodle called to Noodle:
"Let's land there, my brave old salt!" He said that, making believe he
was a sailor, you understand.
"Ha! We will land there, messmate!" replied Noodle to Toodle, also
making believe he was a sailor.
So they steered their boat toward the island and landed there. There
were no orange trees, I am sorry to say, and no cocoanut ones, though
I suppose I could just as well as not have written about them growing
there. Perhaps next time I will. But, anyhow, as the hand organ man
says occasionally, Toodle and Noodle saw a hickory nut tree there, and
the two beaver boys thought they would get some of the nuts.
"We can eat some," said Toodle.
"And with the others we can play marbles," said Noodle.
With that they began to gnaw down the tree, for that to them, was
easier than climbing up, as Billie or Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel
brothers, would have done.
Well, Toodle and Noodle had the tree almost gnawed down, and they were
thinking how good the nuts would taste, when, all of a sudden, the bad
wolf, who owned the island and the trees, and all on it, came along,
and he growled:
"Ah, ha! This is the time I have those beaver boys! Taking my trees,
eh? Just for that I'll take them both off to jail and bite them on each
of their ears. Wow!"
Wasn't he the bad old wolf, though?
So before Toodle or Noodle could run away, for they were not very
quick on their feet on land, as I have told you, before they could get
away the wolf had them both. He held Toodle in one paw and Noodle in
the other, and he just glared at them, worse than a rag doll stares at
the ceiling when she's asleep.
"Oh, please let us go!" begged Noodle. "I'll give you an ice cream cone
if you do."
"Yes, and I'll give you two," said Toodle.
"No, sir-ee sir!" exclaimed the wolf, just as the coal man sometimes
speaks before he brings in the ice. "I am going to take you off to
jail," and away the wolf started with Toodle and Noodle.
Now, just about this time Crackie, the little girl beaver, had her
wooden doll all dressed, and she thought she would start out to find
her brothers. She asked some other boy and girl beavers, who were out
playing after school, which way Toodle and Noodle had gone in their
play-boat, and in this way Crackie started toward the make-believe
shipwreck island. But she did not go in a boat--she swam, and carried
her doll on her back so as not to wet her strawberry-box bonnet.
Crackie easily found the island, for she was a very smart little beaver
girl, but at first she could not see her brothers. Then Crackie saw
where the two boy beavers had started to gnaw down the hickory nut
tree, and next she saw the tracks of the wolf, and she guessed what had
happened.
"Oh, the bad wolf has my brothers!" said Crackie. "I am going to try to
save them!"
So, without stopping to think that she, a little beaver girl, could
not do much against a bad wolf, Crackie started out. And she had not
gone very far before she came up behind a blackberry bush, on which
strawberries happened to be growing, and on the other side of that bush
sat the wolf, holding Toodle in one paw and Noodle in the other. The
wolf had become tired and had stopped to rest.
"You boys are a regular nuisance," growled the wolf. "I wish I had you
in jail now."
"Pray, do not take us if it is too much trouble," said Noodle,
politely, hoping he and his brother would be let go.
"Oh, I'll take you to jail just the same," said the bad old wolf, "only
I'll bite your ears now instead of after I get you there. It may be so
dark when I get you to the jail that I can't see to do it."
Then Toodle and Noodle felt very badly at having started to gnaw down
the hickory trees but they had not meant to do wrong, and if they had
known the island belonged to the wolf they'd never have gone there at
all.
"Well, I guess I'll bite your ears," said the wolf, and he opened his
wide mouth. And, just as he did so, brave Crackie reached around from
behind the strawberry-lemon pie bush, and right between the wolf's
opened teeth she stuck her wooden doll, and when the wolf closed down
his jaws he bit on the wooden doll, instead of on Noodle's ear, and the
doll broke in two.
So that's how Crackie spoiled her doll.
"Wow! Double wow and some pepper hash!" cried the wolf, as surprised
as anything at having bitten on a wooden doll when he didn't mean to.
"This is terrible!" And with that the wolf dropped Noodle and Toodle
and ran off to have his dentist make him a new set of teeth, as he had
broken his. So the two beaver boys were safe, you see.
Of course they were very thankful to Crackie for saving them, and they
felt sorry about her broken doll. But the doll was easily fixed when
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, came along with some
paste, so Crackie's pet was soon as good as ever.
Then she went home with Noodle and Toodle to have her supper and get to
bed. And in the next story, if the lady's hatpin doesn't stick in the
automobile tire and let all the juice run out, like an orange shortcake
at a picnic, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle playing Indian.
STORY XII
TOODLE AND NOODLE PLAY INDIAN
One day Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver gentleman of them all, came
in from where he had been looking at the dam which held the water in
the pond from running out. Grandpa Whackum, who was called that, you
remember, because he used to whack his tail on the ground, to warn his
friends of danger--Grandpa Whackum brought with him to the beaver house
where Toodle and Noodle and Crackie Flat-tail lived, some long, slender
pieces of wood he had picked up.
They were left over after a hole in the dam had been mended, and the
hole was made by the bad skillery-scalery alligator sticking in his
double-jointed tail.
"There, boys," said Grandpa Whackum to Toodle and Noodle as he tossed
them the sticks, "there is something you can make bows and arrows of."
"Oh, goodie!" cried Noodle.
"And we can play Indian!" said Toodle. "That will be fun; eh, Noodle?"
"Sure," said Noodle.
"May I play?" asked Crackie, who was making a sawdust dress for her
wooden doll, the same one the wolf bit in two and Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the rabbit gentleman, mended, you remember.
"Pooh! Girls can't play Indian!" said Noodle. "You could be a Red-Cross
nurse if you wanted to, though, and take care of us when we get shot."
"I don't want to do that," said the little beaver girl. "I want to be a
real Indian myself and play with you."
"Oh, girls can't be Indians," said Toodle, and with that he and his
brother, thinking no more of Crackie, began to make their bows and
arrows.
To make a bow you take a stick and bend it. Then you make it fast, so
it can't uncurve, by tying the two ends with a long string. That makes
the string tight, and when you put an arrow on the string and stretch
it and let it go suddenly, the arrow shoots a long way off.
But you must be very careful not to have sharp arrows, and not to aim
them at any one--ever! Shoot at the fence. The fence doesn't mind it.
Soon Toodle and Noodle had their bows and arrows all made and they
started off to find a good place to play Indian.
"We won't go to the wolf's island this time," said Toodle.
"No, indeed," agreed Noodle. "It's too dangerous. If we go anywhere
let's go to a butterfly's island. A butterfly won't hurt us, even if we
should gnaw down his peach tree."
So off they started in their play-boat, leaving Crackie at home as
before, playing with her mended wooden doll. And the rubber doll was
asleep in the bathtub, for she was very fond of soap and water. Not to
eat, of course, but to float around in.
Well, Noodle and Toodle sailed on and on in their boats, hoisting their
tails for sails, and soon they came to a new little island. They were
sure this did not belong to the wolf, and so they decided to land on it
and play Indian.
Out of the boat they got, and soon they were having a good time on the
island, where a huckleberry bush grew with oranges dangling from the
branches. I know that seems queer, but it was so in those days. Of
course things have changed since then, and I don't suppose there are
now any huckleberry bushes with oranges on, or even lemons, for that
matter, but I am telling you this exactly as it happened.
Toodle and Noodle ate a few oranges and then they began to play. They
took some poles and made themselves a wigwam, which is what an Indian
calls a house. It has a hole in the roof for the smoke to go out, and
it looks like a lot of bean poles stacked up in the garden after summer
is over.
Toodle and Noodle were playing away at a great rate in their Indian
wigwam, shooting arrows at other make-believe Indians in the bushes,
sometimes hitting and knocking down an orange or two. And whenever they
did this they would stop and eat the oranges. In this way their faces
and paws got quite yellow. But the boy beavers did not mind that.
"It only makes us look more like Indians," said Noodle.
"To be sure," agreed his brother.
"Now," said Noodle after a bit, "let's both shoot our arrows at once at
that big black stump over there. We'll make believe it's a bear."
Whizz went the two arrows. And then--
"Yow! Wow! Growl! Howl! Scowl!" some one yelled, and the stump rose
up on its hind legs and came rushing at Toodle and Noodle. You see it
wasn't a stump at all--it was really a bear.
"Oh, dear!" yelled Noodle dropping his bow and arrows. "Come on,
Toodle!"
"Yes, let's jump in the water, and then the bear can't catch us!" said
Toodle. For you know beavers are very swift in the water, and few
animals can swim as rapidly as they.
But alas! Likewise alack-a-day! Before Toodle and Noodle could get
to the water the bear had grabbed them in his hairy paws and hugged
them. He didn't hug them because he loved them. Oh, no! But because he
thought he was going to have a good dinner.
"Oh, yum! Yum!" growled the bear, smiling so that he showed his red
tongue and white teeth. "I can see where my dinner is," said the bear.
Toodle looked around, but he could see nothing good to eat. He said so
to Noodle.
"I--I guess he means--us!" exclaimed Noodle, sadly like.
"Oh, dear!" cried Toodle. "Now we are in trouble! I guess we had better
not come to any islands after this."
"I'll fix you for shooting your Indian arrows at me!" growled the bear.
"We--we thought you were a stump!" said Noodle.
"Worse and worse! Calling me a stump!" cried the bear. "Now I shall
certainly frizzle you in buttermilk for my lunch."
Then the bear picked up Toodle in one paw, and Noodle in the other, and
off he started with them.
"Where are you taking us, if you please?" asked Noodle, politely. His
mamma had taught him to be polite, even to a bear.
"I am going to take you to my den," said the bear. "Then my wife will
cook my lunch for me."
So the bear took the two little beaver boys to his den, and as his wife
was not at home just then, having gone down to the five and ten cent
store to buy a new pair of slippers, the bear said:
"I'll just tie you two chaps to a tree until my wife gets back!"
So what did that bear do but take some strong telegraph wire and wind
it around Toodle and Noodle, making them fast to a tree.
"I suppose I could tie you fast with a piece of grapevine," said the
bear, "but I know you have sharp teeth, and could soon gnaw yourselves
loose. But you can't bite through wire."
And Toodle and Noodle knew with sorrow that they could not, and the
bear knew he could go to sleep and safely leave them tied up, which is
just what he did.
Down on the ground in front of his den lay the bear, and soon he was
sound asleep and snoring. Toodle and Noodle tried to break loose, but
the wire was too strong.
"I--I guess this is the end of us," said Noodle sadly. "We are gone!"
Toodle thought so, too, and I don't know what would have happened if
Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the kind muskrat lady, had not happened to come
swimming along. She had been to market to get Uncle Wiggily something
for breakfast.