bill. "You see I have a bad cold in my head. I can't talk very well,
and I can't hear very well. Jimmie Wibblewobble, my little grandson,
dropped part of his ice cream cone down my back the other night, at the
duck party, and that gave me a cold. Oh dear!" and poor Grandfather
Goosey Gander sneezed again. This time his spectacles flew off, and
bounced into the pond of water.
But, in a second, Noodle, who could swim better than a fish, jumped in
and got them out.
"Thank you very kindly," said Grandfather Goosey Gander, as he put his
glasses on his ears--I beg your pardon--I mean his nose.
"What was it you asked me, Noodle?--just before I sneezed--excuse
me--here I go again--aker-choo-choo-choo!" and surely enough, the duck
gentleman sneezed like a choo-choo engine. This time a penny jumped out
of his pocket, he sneezed so hard, and when Noodle picked up the money,
Grandfather Goosey said the little beaver boy could keep it for himself.
"I asked if I couldn't help you carry your bag, Grandfather Goosey,"
said Noodle, when the sneezing had ended. "It seems too heavy for you.
Maybe there is gold in it," he added, for, through a hole in the bag,
the little beaver boy saw something yellow, just like gold.
"Gold! Ha! ha! No, I wish it were," said Grandfather Goosey Gander.
"Then I would be as rich as Uncle Wiggly Longears, the rabbit
gentleman.
"No, Noodle, this isn't gold. It is yellow corn, that we ducks will eat
this winter, just as you beavers will eat the bark of trees."
"Do you want me to help you carry it?" asked Noodle. Somehow or other
he was just a little sorry that the bag didn't have in it some Santa
Claus Christmas presents. But then there was time enough for them
later, he thought.
"Oh, bless your tail, no!" said Grandpa Goosey Gander, with a laughing
quack. "I shall manage it very well. But, since you were so kind as to
offer to help, Noodle, I will give you an ear of corn. It isn't the
yellow kind that we ducks eat, but a white kind.
"And if you shell off the kernels and put them in a popper or a pan
over the fire the corn will pop, and you can put butter on it, and
salt; or you can put sugar on it, just like down on the board walk at
Asbury Grove. Here is your ear of pop corn."
"Oh, thank you very much," said the little beaver boy, as Grandpa
Goosey gave him the extra white ear of pop corn. "I'll pop it tonight
and give Toodle and Crackie some," said Noodle.
"Very good," spoke Grandpa Goosey, and then, slinging his bag over his
shoulder he started for home, while Noodle went on to school. He
left the ear of pop corn outside in a hollow stump, where no one could
find it, for he did not want to take it in school with him.
"Well, what did Grandpa Goosey have in the bag?" asked Toodle of Noodle
at recess that day.
"Corn," answered Noodle, "and he gave me some of my own to pop. We'll
have a good time home tonight."
Well, when evening came in the Flat-tail house, and when the lessons
were all done, Noodle brought out his ear of corn, and he and Toodle
and Crackie shelled off the kernels. There was a fire on the open fire
place, and when the logs had burned down to red, glowing coals, Noodle
put the popper over them and shook it back and forth, just as Grandpa
Goosey had told him to do, so the corn would not burn.
"Now, children," said Mrs. Flat-tail to them, "your papa and I are
going over to call on Uncle Wiggily Longears for a few minutes. Grandpa
Whackum is out to a moving picture show, and so you will be all alone.
But I know you will be all right."
"Yes, mamma," said Toodle and Crackie.
Then Noodle shook the popper some more, while his papa and mamma went
out. The corn was rather slow in popping, and the beaver children were
just wondering whether Grandpa Goosey had not made a mistake, and given
Noodle the wrong kind, when, all of a sudden, the front door quietly
opened, and in came creeping softly--oh! so softly!--a bad old fox!
He wanted to get one of the beaver children, but neither Noodle nor
Toodle nor Crackie heard the fox, as they were so busy watching for the
corn to pop.
Nearer and nearer crept the fox, and the bad creature suddenly stuck
out his paws and grabbed Crackie.
"Now, I have you!" cried the fox, and at that Noodle, who was shaking
the popper, turned around to see what had happened. And when he saw
that the fox had hold of his sister Crackie, Noodle was so surprised
that he forgot to shake the popper. That made the corn get very hot,
and it quickly began to pop all at once.
All of a sudden poppity-pop-pop! it went, just like a lot of
firecrackers, and the popper was so full that the cover flew off, and
the white pop corn was scattered all over the room.
It showered on the fox just like snow, and the bad creature was so
frightened at hearing the popping noise, and at seeing the snow white
kernels burst out, that he cried:
"Oh, wow! Double wow and some pepperhash. Oh, I am shot! I am caught
in a snow storm! Excuse me!"
And with that he let go of Crackie, and out of the door he rushed, home
to his den where he belonged. And so he didn't get Crackie after all,
nor Toodle nor Noodle. And the beaver children weren't frightened any
more, and they popped corn, and made some with butter on, and some with
sugar, and their papa and mamma and Grandpa Whackum said it was just
fine.
So that's the story of Noodle and his pop corn, that Grandpa Goosey
Gander gave him, and I hope you liked it. And next, if the puppy dog
doesn't pull off the baby's stockings to play tag with in the gold-fish
tank, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle in trouble.
STORY XXIII
TOODLE AND NOODLE IN TROUBLE
Of course, they didn't mean to do it. Children, whether they are
animals, like little beaver boys, or real boys and girls like
yourselves, never do mean to get into trouble, I suppose, but,
sometimes they do, just the same.
And now, if you'd like to hear it, and won't wiggle too much, I'll tell
you how Toodle and Noodle, the two little beaver boys, made a lot of
trouble, just because they didn't stop to think.
It was one cool day, when there was no school, because Professor Rat
had to go to the dentist's to have his spectacles fixed, that this
happened.
Toodle and Noodle, with their sister Crackie, had started for school,
and on the way, as they often did, they met Billie and Johnnie
Bushytail, the squirrels, and Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit
children, and Buddy and Brighteyes, the guinea pigs, and many more of
their friends.
And when they reached the school, which was in an old boat that floated
around the pond, there was a sign on the door reading:
"No School Today. Come Tomorrow."
"Oh, joy!" cried Toodle.
"Oh, happiness!" said Noodle.
"Now we can have some fun," spoke Bully the frog. "Come on, boys, what
shall we do?"
"Come over by our beaver pond and maybe we can have some fun there,"
suggested Toodle.
"Yes, you can coast down our mud slide into the water," added Noodle.
"Oh, I couldn't do that--rabbits are not supposed to do that," said
Sammie Littletail.
"Well, come on, anyhow," urged Noodle. "We'll find some way to have
fun."
So many of the animal boys went with Toodle and Noodle over to the
beaver pond, where there was a dam, or a long, low wall of mud, stones,
sticks and grass to keep the water from running away. It was just such
a dam as you children build in the gutter on a rainy day, only the
beaver dam was larger.
Most of the little girl animals--such as Susie Littletail, Dottie Trot,
the pony girl; Kittie Kat, the little pussy girl--and, of course,
Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girls, went along with Crackie
Flat-tail to the woods, to play with their dolls.
When Toodle and Noodle, and their boy friends, came running around the
beaver pond--some of them, like Bully No-tail, the frog, swimming in
it--the beaver lady said:
"My goodness, my sakes alive and some cherry potpie! What does this
mean, Toodle--Noodle? Why are you home from school at this hour? It
isn't out, is it?"
"There isn't any school, ma," said Toodle, putting away his books.
"Professor Rat has the toothache in his spectacles. Oh, I'm so glad!"
"What!" cried Mrs. Flat-tail, "glad that any one is in pain?"
"Oh, no, ma," said Noodle, quickly. "Toodle meant that he was glad
there was no school."
"That's it," said Toodle. "Come on, boys, let's have some fun. We'll go
play around the dam, and I'll show you how we coast down the mud slide."
"Be very careful," said Mrs. Flat-tail. "There is a lot of water in the
pond, on account of the big rain and the dam is not very strong. Don't
do anything to break it, for that would make a lot of trouble. All the
water would run out."
"We won't, ma," said Noodle, and really he meant it at the time he said
it, of course.
Well, the boys who had come home with Toodle and Noodle began playing.
They had lots of fun, and when the beaver boys slid down the slippery
mud slide by sitting on their big tails, why, Sammie Littletail said
it was as good as a circus, and wished he had a big tail such as all
beavers have.
But of course when Toodle and Noodle slid down the mud slide that
wasn't much fun for any one else, because the slide ran right into the
water, into which Toodle and Noodle would go "ker-splash" every time
they got to the bottom.
"I'll tell you what we can do," said Noodle, after a bit. "We can all
go up to the top of the mud slide, and roll stones down it. The one who
sends his stone the longest distance wins the game."
"That will be fun," cried Toodle. "Let's all get stones and roll them
down."
Now this is what Toodle and Noodle should not have done, for the
mud slide was close to the big dam that held in the waters of the
beaver pond. And when the stones rolled down the slide they might break
a hole in the dam. But Toodle and Noodle didn't think.
Soon all the boys were rolling stones, and many of the rocks hit the
dam, bouncing off, turning somersaults over it, and some of them
landing on it.
"Now for a big stone," cried Noodle, as he climbed up the slide, with
a large rock on his tail, which was like a sled, you see.
"Oh, I have a bigger one!" cried Toodle, and up he came with one, too.
If Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all, had been there he
never would have let the boys play such a game, and, really, Toodle and
Noodle should have known better. But they didn't think.
All of a sudden Toodle and Noodle rolled their big stones down the
slide, which was made slippery with water from the pond. Toodle's stone
struck the dam near the middle and Noodle's over a little to one side.
And then something happened. The stones broke large holes in the dam,
and through these holes the water began rushing out. The beaver pond
began to get lower and lower.
"Oh, dear!" cried Noodle. "Look what we did!"
"Yes, I guess we'd better be getting home, boys," said Samuel
Littletail. "The beavers will think we did that, Billie Bushytail."
"You're right!" cried the squirrel boy. Then he and all the others were
going to leave Toodle and Noodle, when Bully, the frog, cried out:
"Oh, say! That isn't fair! When we are playing ball, and we break a
window, we all help pay for it. Now that the dam is broken, though we
didn't do it, we must help Toodle and Noodle fix it. Come on, boys."
The little beavers, who had felt sad when they saw all their friends
going to leave them, were happy now. By this time the water was fast
rushing out of the pond, through the holes the stones had made in the
dam. And from their houses came rushing the grown-up beavers, wondering
what had happened.
When they saw the trouble Toodle and Noodle had made they cried out:
"Oh, dear!"
For you know if the dam breaks and all the water in the pond runs out
the beavers have to make another, or else they could not live in their
houses. For their front doors have to be under water, you see, to keep
out bad animals.
Just then up came Grandpa Whackum. He saw right away that something
must be done.
"Quick, boys," he called to Toodle and Noodle and their boy friends.
"Bring me mud and sticks and leaves and grass and stones and pieces of
wood. We'll mend the dam!"
Those animal boys who were good swimmers jumped into the pond and
brought to Grandpa Whackum the things the other animals gathered from
the woods. Soon the old beaver gentleman had many willing helpers, and
with his paws, which were like a monkey's hands, and his big tail he
stopped up the holes in the dam. Toodle and Noodle helped also.
But, oh! what a lot of trouble they had made, though they did not mean
to. Soon the dam was all fixed and the water was stopped from running
out of the pond. Then Grandpa Whackum gave all the animal boys a penny
for ice cream sandwiches and everybody was happy. Toodle and Noodle
said they would never roll big stones down the mud slide again.
"Well, I hope there is school tomorrow," said Grandpa Whackum, with a
sigh, as he sat down on his tail to rest.
So that's how Toodle and Noodle made trouble, though not meaning to,
and on the next page, if the jam doesn't fall on the toy balloon and
make it so sticky that it can't go out in the baby carriage with the
rubber doll, I'll tell you about Toodle and the chestnuts.
STORY XXIV
TOODLE AND THE CHESTNUTS
"Oh, but I'm glad there's no school today!" cried Billie Bushytail, the
squirrel boy, as he made a noise like a popcorn ball and ran up one
side of a tree and down the other.
"So am I!" cried his brother Johnnie, who was trying to see how long he
could stand on his head without sneezing.
"Why are you so glad?" asked Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy.
"It's Saturday and you know there's never any school that day."
"I know there isn't," spoke Johnnie, "but then, you see, on account of
there being none yesterday, when Professor Rat had the toothache in his
spectacles, I thought maybe he'd make us come this morning."
"I didn't hear the bell ring, so I'm sure there's no school," said
Toodle. "And if it's just the same to you, Billie and Johnnie, I wish
you wouldn't speak about yesterday. I want to forget all about how
Noodle and I rolled the big stones down the mud slide and broke the
dam, making a lot of trouble for Grandpa Whackum."
"All right, we won't speak any more about it," said Johnnie,
pleasantly. "But I'll tell you why I'm so glad there's no school today.
It's because Billie and I are going after chestnuts."
"Chestnuts!" exclaimed Toodle, the beaver boy, looking at his tail to
be sure there were no stickery bramble briars on it. "Where are they?"
"Oh, they grow on a tree like hickory nuts," said Johnnie, "only they
come all wrapped up in a big burr, with sharp points on, and we have to
wait for the frost to open the burr before we can get the nuts out."
"And when we do get them! Oh, yum-yum!" cried Billie. "How good they
are--even better than ice cream!"
"Oh, now I know what you mean," said Toodle. "I have seen chestnuts,
but I always thought they came roasted, and grew on a wagon that an
Italian gentleman pushed around the street, on two wheels. So chestnuts
grow on trees, eh?"
"To be sure," said Billie, "and if you like you may come with Johnnie
and me when we gather some today."
"I'd just love to!" cried Toodle and he felt so happy that he tried
to stand up on the end of his tail. But it was too broad and flat,
and, though it was, as are all beavers' tails, good to sit on, like a
stool, Toodle could not stand upon its end.
So, the consequence was, Toodle fell over backward, but his coat of fur
(getting ready for winter) was so thick that he never felt his tumble
any more than if he had landed in a feather bed, or in a basket of soap
bubbles, which are as soft as anything I know of.
"Where's Noodle?" asked Johnnie, when Toodle had picked himself up and
brushed the dirt off his coat by fanning himself with his wide tail.
"Where is Noodle, Toodle?"
"Oh, he went to the store for mamma. She wanted some molasses to make a
birch bark pudding with. We needn't wait for Noodle, if you are going
after chestnuts. I heard him say he was going to play football with
Munchie Trot, the pony boy, when he came back from the store. If we get
any chestnuts I'll save him some, anyhow."
"Oh, we're sure to get some," spoke Billie.
"Yes, for we know where lots of trees grow," added Johnnie. "Come along
now, Toodle."
So Toodle, the little beaver boy, and Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the
squirrels, started after chestnuts.
On and on they went through the woods and as they went Toodle sang this
little song, which he made up all himself, without anyone helping him:
"Chestnuts grow on big trees,
Almost to the sky.
And if you ever climb one
Don't go up too high.
"If you take a tumble,
Don't fall on your head,
Unless you put under you
Mamma's feather bed."
"Well, well!" laughed Billie Bushytail. "That's pretty good!"
"It surely is," said his brother Johnnie. "But how can you tell when
you're going to fall, Toodle, so as to have the feather bed with you?"
"I guess you'd have to take it along each time you went nutting," said
the little beaver boy. "I only put the feather bed in the verse to make
it rhyme, anyhow. You don't really need it."
Then they went on a little farther and soon they had come to the place
where the chestnut trees grew.
"Now, Billie and I will climb up," said Johnnie. "We'll knock the
chestnuts down to you, Toodle, and you can gather them into a pile.
When we have all we want we'll divide them."
"Very good," said the little beaver boy, who knew he could not climb a
tree as well as can squirrels. "And if you get up the tree and can't
get down again, I can gnaw it down for you, with my big orange-colored
teeth. And I'll let it fall so gently that you won't be hurt."
"Thank you," said Billie, "but I guess we can get down, Toodle."
Up the chestnut tree scrambled the squirrel boys and soon they were
throwing down lots of chestnuts to Toodle, who gathered them into a
pile. Once in a while, a chestnut would hit the little beaver boy on
the head, but he did not mind that.
"You want to look out, though, if any of the big, round, stickery
chestnut burrs fall on you," said Billie. "Of course we wouldn't mean
to throw any on you and there are not many left that aren't opened, but
one might accidentally hit you."
"Oh, I'll look out," laughed Toodle.
Well, some of the prickly burrs did come down, but they did not hit
Toodle, and he brushed them to one side, in a pile, with his thick,
strong tail, which even a chestnut burr could not hurt.
"Well, I guess we have all the nuts off this tree," said Billie, after
a bit. "Come on down, Johnnie, and we'll go look for another one," and
down the squirrel boys scrambled, as quickly as a monkey on a stick, or
a jumping-jack, if you prefer that. So Toodle didn't have to gnaw the
tree down.
"We'll go over there by that old stump," said Billie, pointing to it
with his tail.
"Shall I come?" asked Toodle.
"No, you had better stay here and keep guard over the chestnuts on the
ground," said Johnnie. "Some one might come and take them while we are
gone. We won't be long, and if there are any nuts on the trees over
there we'll come back and get you, and these nuts too."
So away went Billie and Johnnie, leaving Toodle on guard by the
chestnuts. At first nothing happened, and Toodle was thinking he could
even take a little sleep, when, all of a sudden, out from behind a
stump came a big, black bear. Oh, but he was a bad one; and he came
closer and closer to Toodle, until he stood right in front of the
little beaver boy, all ready to grab him.
"Ah, ha!" growled the bear. "Now I have you!"
"Oh, dear!" cried Toodle. "What do you want?"
"I want you and the chestnuts, too," said the bad bear. "Come, get
ready! I'm going to carry you off to my den!" and he came nearer to
poor Toodle.
The little beaver boy looked to see if he could find anyone to help
him. But Billie and Johnnie Bushytail were far off, looking for more
chestnut trees, and no one else was near. Even when Toodle whacked with
his tail on the ground, the way his papa had taught him to do when
there was danger, no one came to help the beaver boy.
"Well, here's where I grab you!" growled the bear, and he was just
going to hug Toodle in his sharp claws and maybe scratch him, for all I
can tell, when, all of a sudden, Toodle saw a big pile of the prickly
chestnut burrs he had brushed together.
"Ah, ha!" thought Toodle. "These will do for that bear."
And with one sweep of his tail along the ground, Toodle sent those
burrs in a regular shower in the bear's face. The sharp, prickly
stickers stuck in the soft and tender nose of that bear and made him
sneeze and cough, and have the toothache and turn a somersault all at
once. And then the bear cried:
"Oh, woe is me! I'm all stuck up. I guess I'll go home!"
And home to his den he went, leaving Toodle and the chestnuts alone,
and pretty soon Billie and Johnnie came back, not having found any more
nut-trees. So Toodle told them about the bear, and how he had driven
him off, and the squirrels said the beaver boy was very brave. Then
they divided the chestnuts, and went home, and now it's time for you to
go to bed.
But on the page after this, if the piece of cheese doesn't jump out of
the mouse-trap and scare the clothesline into the waste paper basket,
I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle on the ice.
STORY XXV
TOODLE AND NOODLE ON THE ICE
"Come, boys! Get up!" called Mrs. Flat-tail, the beaver lady, who was
the mother of the two little beaver boys. "Time to get up or you'll be
late for school!" and she pounded on the ceiling with a nice piece of
birch tree stick, from which she gnawed the bark so that from it she
could make griddle cakes for breakfast.
Toodle put one paw out of his bed, which had been made in a pile of
nice clean shavings.
"Bur-r-r-r-r-r!" he cried, pulling his paw back quickly again under
the warm bed quilt, made of soft brown leaves, sewed together.
"Bur-r-r-r-r! It's awful cold!"
"Is it?" asked Noodle, rubbing his eyes with his paws. "Is it cold,
Toodle?"
"Indeed it is," replied Toodle. "Just put your paw out and see."
Noodle did so.
"My goodness me, sakes alive, and some icicle soup!" he cried. "I
should say it was cold! There'll be skating this morning, I guess. Is
Grandpa Whackum down there?" he called to his mamma, who was already
cooking the griddle cakes, and putting the maple sugar on the back of
the stove, where it would keep warm.
"Yes, I'm here," answered Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them
all. "I'm down here, boys, and if you don't soon come down here too,
I'll go up there and tickle you so you won't know whether you're
standing on your head or on your tail. Are you coming?"
"Indeed we are," answered Noodle, and then, getting brave, he suddenly
threw back the leaf-bedquilt and jumped out into the middle of the room
that was built upstairs in the beaver house, which stood in the middle
of a pond of water.
Beavers, you know, are little animals like muskrats, and they just
love the water, as I have already told you. They love it so much that
nearly always they build their houses right in a pond, which they make
by raising a dam to keep the water from running away, just as you do in
the gutter on a rainy day.
"See who'll be dressed first!" cried Noodle, and then Toodle jumped out
on the cold floor. Soon they were both dressed, for beaver boys have so
much fur that they do not need to wear many clothes, even in winter.
"I won!" cried Noodle, who finished the last button on his shoes just
as his brother Toodle was beginning to fasten his. "I'm dressed first."
"Oh, well, I don't mind," said Toodle. "I'll be washed first!" and he
was, because there was only one wash basin in the boys' room and only
one of them could get his paws in it at a time.
"Come! Come!" cried Mrs. Flat-tail again. "The cakes are getting cold,
boys."
"I'll be down stairs first!" cried Noodle, and he ran for the banister,
reached it ahead of his brother, and down he slid--"ker-bang!" landing
on the kitchen rug. So he was downstairs first. Then both the little
beaver boys ate as many birch bark pancakes as were good for them, and
Crackie, their little sister, ate two and part of another one.
"Oh, look at our pond!" cried Toodle, as he gazed out of the window.
"It's all frozen over!"
"So it is!" said Noodle. "Oh, it must be very cold!"
"Yes, you had better get out your skates and skate to school," said
Grandpa Whackum, who had finished his breakfast.
"But we have no ice skates," said Toodle, "and I don't believe roller
skates would be very good."
"Not on ice," answered Grandpa Whackum. "But I'll show you how to make
ice skates. If I had some long, clean bones now--"
"I know where there are some!" cried Crackie. "I saw Jackie and Peetie
Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, dragging some bones over on shore
yesterday."
"The very thing!" cried Grandpa Whackum. "I'll swim to shore, under the
ice, and get them. Then I'll make skates for you two beaver boys."