Whackum dived out through the front door of the beaver house. This door
was under water, and the old gentleman beaver soon found himself under
the ice that covered the top of the pond. But he was used to that.
So he swam to shore until he found a place where the ice was broken
through in a round hole.
Then, he popped out and along the frozen bank of the beaver pond he ran
until he found the bones the little puppy dog boys had been playing
with the day before.
"These bones will make fine skates for the boys," said Grandpa Whackum.
"They are long and straight and smooth."
Down under the ice he went again, and soon he was once more in the
beaver house. Toodle and Noodle were getting their books ready to start
for school.
"I think it is too cold for you to go today, Crackie," said Mrs.
Flat-tail.
"Oh, mamma, I don't want to stay home! I want to go to school today!"
cried the little beaver girl. "I know all my lessons."
"We could pull her along on our tails for a sled," said Toodle.
"Especially if we skate," added his brother.
"Oh, you'll skate, all right!" said Grandpa Whackum, as he went on
making the bone skates. It was quite easy. All he had to do was to
fasten some strings to the bones, so Toodle and Noodle could tie them
to their hind paws. Then they could glide along on the bones, over the
ice, just as you boys and girls use your roller skates.
Toodle and Noodle were delighted with the bone skates their grandpa
made for them.
"It won't take us long to get to school on these," said Toodle.
"That is, if we don't fall down much," agreed Noodle.
"Oh! I'll show you how to skate so you will not fall down very much,"
said Grandpa Whackum.
So they all went out on the ice, the old gentleman beaver himself
putting on a pair of bone skates. Then he showed Toodle and Noodle how
to strike out, and how to glide, and they were soon able to skate very
well.
"Ding-dong!" rang the school bell.
"Come on!" cried Toodle. "We'll be late!"
"Wait for me! Wait for me!" cried Crackie, as her brothers started off
without her.
"Sit on my tail, Crackie," invited Toodle. "I'll give you a ride
first, and then Noodle can take a turn. And you can carry our books."
So little Crackie sat down on the broad flat tail of her brother
Toodle, which, as you can see by the picture, was almost as good as a
sled. I wish I could show you a picture of Crackie riding to school
this way, but I am not allowed, as I don't know how to draw.
Anyhow, off the two little beaver boys started, over the ice, on their
bone skates, that were tied fast to their hind paws. Crackie went with
them.
"Ding-dong!" rang the school bell. Faster and faster skated Toodle and
Noodle. They felt sure they would not be late this time.
Pretty soon Crackie jumped over on Noodle's tail, and on they went
faster than ever.
But something happened. They were almost at the school, which was
in an old boat, that was now frozen fast in the ice, when, all of a
sudden, out from behind a stump popped a hungry bear. Oh, he was so
hungry! He hadn't had his breakfast, and when he saw Toodle and Noodle
and Crackie, he just smacked his lips, and rolled out his red tongue,
nearly biting it with his sharp teeth, and that bear cried:
"Oh, ho! Now I will have something to eat!"
He ran after the beaver children, and Crackie called:
"Oh, Toodle! Oh, Noodle! Skate! Skate as fast as you can away from that
bear!"
"That's what we will!" shouted Toodle. Then the two beaver boys skated
faster than they had ever skated before, Noodle pulling Crackie along
on his tail. On came the bear. He was getting nearer and nearer, when,
all of a sudden, Noodle cried:
"Quick, Toodle, turn to the left. There's a hole right through the ice!"
Toodle and Noodle both turned aside and skated past the hole, but the
bear couldn't stop himself, nor turn quickly enough, and "plump!" he
went into the ice-cold water, making a spray just like a fountain. And
he got all wet and frozen, and his feet stuck to the ice when he got
out, so he couldn't chase Toodle and Noodle or Crackie any more, and
the beaver children got safely to school, a little out of breath, but
otherwise all right. Every one said they were very brave.
So that's how Toodle and Noodle skated on the ice and saved Crackie
from the bear, and next, if the water pitcher doesn't fall down the
cellar and put the furnace fire out in the ash can to sleep all night,
I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle playing football.
STORY XXVI
TOODLE AND NOODLE PLAY FOOTBALL
It was quite cold and shivery one day when Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail,
the little beaver boys, started for school. It was not quite as cold
as the day they had skated on the ice, riding their sister Crackie on
their tails, when they got away from the bear, who fell into the water,
as I told you yesterday.
No, it was not quite as cold as that, but still it was very shivery,
and as Toodle and Noodle hurried along, with their books tucked under
their left forelegs, they put their paws in their pockets.
"There'll be lots of skating if this keeps on," said Noodle.
"Indeed there will," said his brother Toodle.
And the reason there was no skating just then was because there had
been a little warm spell, and the ice on the beaver pond had melted,
cracking all up, and was floating about in chunks, like little boats.
But they were cold little boats, and the beavers did not like to swim
among them.
Crackie was not going to school that day, as she had the
sniffle-snuffles and her nose was all red and her eyes ached
and filled with water, and she had to have a piece of red flannel
around her throat. Oh, well, you know how it is when you have the
sniffle-snuffles, don't you? So there's no use in me stopping any
longer over that part. I may as well get on with the story.
"I wish it would snow," said Toodle, as he stumbled over a humpy place
in the woods through which he and his brother were going just then to
get to the school, which had been moved to a hollow stump, instead of
being in the boat, as before.
Professor Rat, the principal, said it was getting too cold to have
school in the boat any longer so he and the lady bug teacher, and the
janitor, and the blackboards and the bell, all moved into the hollow
stump--not the one where the bear lived, though. No, indeed! I guess
not!
Of course the bell and blackboards didn't move themselves from the
boat-school into the school stump. No, the janitor and Professor Rat
did that, and the lady bug teacher looked on and said:
"Oh, dear! Isn't it dreadful hard work to move a school?"
"Why do you wish it to snow?" asked Noodle of Toodle, after a while.
"So we could go sleigh riding and build a snow house--"
"Oh, that's so! I forgot what fun we can have when it snows!" cried
Noodle. "I was thinking that it would spoil the skating, but there
isn't any to spoil now. Let's wish real hard that it would snow."
So the beaver boys wished as hard as they could, and looked up at the
sky, hoping to see some of the white flakes sifting down. But they saw
none.
"We'd better hurry," called Noodle. "There goes the first bell and
we've got quite a long way to go yet!"
So the two little beaver boys hurried on and, just as they got to the
bridge over the tiny little brook that sang a merry song in the summer,
but which did not sing so merrily in winter, Toodle and Noodle heard
some one saying:
"Oh, who will buy? Oh, who will buy,
My last balloon before I cry?"
"Hark! What's that?" whispered Noodle.
"I don't know," answered Toodle. "It sounded like--like--somebody!"
"Of course it was somebody," spoke Noodle. "But who? That's the
question."
They stood on the little bridge over the small brook and once more they
heard the voice saying, louder than before, this time:
"Oh, buy it quick! Oh, buy it quick
My red balloon upon a stick."
"That's funny," said Toodle, looking at his brother, who was sitting
down on his tail to rest himself. "Do you s'pose that could be the
circus elephant? He used to like balloons."
"It doesn't sound like the elephant," answered Noodle. "Still, you
never can tell--"
Then the voice, that seemed to come from under the bridge, interrupted
the little beaver boy by saying:
"Please buy this red balloon of me.
It is my last one; can't you see?
I'll make the price--Oh, very low.
For just one cent I'll let it go."
"Oh, Toodle!" cried Noodle, "have you a cent? If you have let's buy
this balloon!"
"But how do we know who is selling it, or where he is, or whether it's
really a balloon or not?" asked Toodle, looking in his pocket to see if
he still had the penny Grandpa Whackum had given him the night before.
"Well, we can look under the bridge;" said Noodle, "and find out. Any
one who sells balloons--especially red ones--is sure to be kind and
good. I'm going to take a look through the crack in the bridge. We
have time before the last bell rings."
So Noodle peeked down through a crack in the bridge floor, and there
sitting on a stone near the water was a little monkey-doodle boy, with
one red balloon tied to a stick.
"Do you really want to sell that balloon for a penny?" asked Noodle.
"We'll buy it from you if you do."
The monkey looked up and saw the beaver boys, and in an instant he had
scrambled up on the bridge.
"It is my last balloon," said the monkey-doodle. "I am all sold out
except this one, so I am going to let you have it for a penny. Circus
time is past, and I want to go and take a long sleep. I don't need the
balloon any more."
"Well, then, we'll take it," said Toodle, lifting the penny out of his
pocket. "We can have fun flying it."
"Oh, I can tell you how to have more fun with it than that," said
the monkey-doodle, as he got ready to go away down South where it is
warm, for monkeys like it warm in the winter. "You can play football
with that balloon, and football is a very nice game for cold weather.
It warms you. You must get some leather and make a covering for the
red balloon. Then, when you kick it, the balloon won't burst. Make a
football of it, I say."
"I guess we will," agreed Toodle.
Well, the beaver boys went on to school, with their red balloon, and,
in order that the teacher would not take it away from them in the class
room, they tied it outside in a tree, the way Mary told her lamb to
stay outside. But the lamb wouldn't stay outside, and neither would the
red balloon-football.
A window happened to be open, and all of a sudden the ball blew into
the school, though it was still tied to the string on the tree branch.
All the animal children in the hollow-stump school laughed and so did
the teacher.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked the lady bug of Toodle and
Noodle, when they told her about their balloon, and when the window had
been shut so it couldn't come in again.
"Make a football of it," answered Toodle.
"Only we have to cover it with leather," said Noodle, "so it won't
break."
"Oh, I'll do that for you," said the lady bug teacher, who liked boys.
So that night she took the red balloon home with her and she made a
leather cover for it, bringing it back next morning. Oh, it was a fine
football then!
"Let's have a game!" cried Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, as he
gave the new football a kick that sent it away over the fence. It was
so light you see--the football I mean, not the fence--that it flew all
over.
"All right, we'll have some fun!" cried Toodle, and then he and Noodle
and Billie Bushytail and Sammie Littletail and all the animal boys,
including Munchie Trot, the pony, played football in the school yard
until it was time to go in.
Now, though the boys didn't know it, there was hiding behind the fence
the same old bear that had chased Toodle and Noodle and Crackie one day
on the ice.
"I'll just wait until one of those animal boys comes near this hole in
the fence," thought the bad bear, "then I'll grab him and have a nice
lunch."
Well, Toodle was going to kick the football and Noodle got away over by
the fence to grab it when it came down.
"Kick away!" called Noodle to Toodle.
"And now is my chance to get him," thought the bear. Toodle kicked the
balloon-football as hard as he could and just as Noodle was going to
get it, the bear made a grab for him. But all of a sudden, the wind
blew the football off to one side, and instead of Noodle getting it,
that football hit the bear on the nose. Smacko! Cracko!
The football was so light and fluffy that it tickled the bear and made
him sneeze, and whenever a bear sneezes he can bite no one except his
own tongue. That's what this bear did, and he was so angry that he gave
three howls and part of another one, and then he ran home to his den
where he belonged.
Then the football game went on until it was time to go into school and
all the boy animals said they had had a fine time.
They thanked Toodle and Noodle for buying the balloon-football from the
monkey-doodle and many times that winter, when it was not too cold,
there were football games.
So no more just now, if you please, but in the next story, if the
rocking chair doesn't step on the molasses jug's ear and make the
popcorn balls cry to go to the moving pictures, I'll tell you about
Crackie Flat-tail and Joie Kat.
STORY XXVII
CRACKIE AND JOIE KAT
"Mamma, is Crackie going to school today?" asked Toodle Flat-tail, the
little beaver boy, one morning, when it was almost time for the first
bell to ring.
Mrs. Flat-tail looked out of the window of the beaver house in the pond
behind the dam, and said:
"No, I think not. Her sniffle-snuffles are not much better today than
they were yesterday. Besides, it is rather warm weather now, the pond
is not frozen and it looks like snow. I think I shall keep her home
until tomorrow, at least. Now run along, Toodle--you and Noodle. And be
good boys."
"We will," promised Noodle, as he caught up the red balloon-football,
covered with leather. He and his brother and the other animal boys
thought they would have a fine game that day.
Crackie, the little beaver girl, felt very lonesome after her brothers
had left her. She had not been going to school very long, and she
was in the kindergarten, but still she liked her teacher and her
schoolmates. However, when a beaver girl has the sniffle-snuffles she
can't very well go to school, for she sneezes all the time; and when
the teacher asks how many three and two are she has to say:
"Ak-er-choo," which isn't the right answer at all.
So, as I say, Crackie felt a little lonesome. But her mamma let her
help dry the breakfast dishes, and Crackie only dropped a saucer, which
didn't break very much, only about half of it falling off.
"You are doing very well, Crackie," said Mrs. Flat-tail with a smile
at the little beaver girl. "Soon we won't have to call you Crackie
at all." You see Crackie had such an odd name because she used to be
always dropping and cracking such things as dishes, and ice cream
cones, and lollypops and all like that.
Well, after the dishes were dried Grandpa Whackum, the old beaver
gentleman, said:
"I think I will go out and take a look at the dam. It may have some
holes in it, where a bear or wolf tried to tear it down last night, and
if the dam breaks, and all the water runs out of our pond, we will have
a hard time, for it will not rain much more this year."
So Grandpa Whackum started out, but just as he was going to dive down
through the front door, which was under water so no bad animals could
get in, the old beaver gentleman cried:
"Oh, dear me, suz dud! There's a button off my overcoat right where it
goes around my neck. I must have it sewed on, or the cold wind will
come in, and I'll have the epizootic, and the sniffle-snuffles, too."
"I'll sew it on for you, Grandpa Whackum," said Crackie, kindly.
So sitting down on her tail, which was like a stool, you know, the
little beaver girl used a thorn from the bramble briar bush for a
needle, and some strong strings of dried grass for thread, and so she
sewed the button on her grandpa's coat.
Then he went out to look at the dam, that kept the water in the pond
from running off--maybe to a moving picture show--and Mrs. Flat-tail
said:
"Well, I do declare! It's almost ten o'clock, and I promised I'd go
over to Mrs. Wibblewobble's house, and show her how to make corn-meal
fritters. Would you mind staying alone a little while, Crackie?"
"Oh, no, mamma, of course not," answered the little beaver girl. "I'll
just make a new dress for my doll Anna Jane Huckelberry Puddingstick.
She needs a new dress very badly."
Mrs. Flat-tail went out and that left Crackie all alone in the beaver
house. But still she did not mind. She was sewing away, and wondering
whether she should put a thing-a-ma-bob on the skirt, with three rows
of lace inserted on the bias, or whether the dress would look nicer
with some apple pie frosting, trimmed with cocoanut macaroons, on the
what-you-may-call-it. She had just about decided to use the ice cream
puffs on the sleeves, when, all of a sudden, Crackie heard a terrible
noise outside.
Some one cried:
"Ha! Now I'll get you! Now I have you! Oh, you can't get away from me
now."
And then another voice said:
"Meaouw! Meaouw! Meaouw!"
Next there came a big thump on top of the beaver house that was built
in the middle of the pond, and a voice cried out:
"Oh! whoever is in there please let me in! Toodle! Noodle! Please let
me in!"
"My goodness!" cried Crackie, and she jumped up so suddenly that her
rubber doll, who was asleep in her lap, fell to the floor. But it
doesn't hurt rubber dolls to fall, and this one went right on sleeping
just as if nothing had happened. "What can that be?" thought Crackie,
wishing her mamma would come back.
"Oh, please let me in!" cried the voice again, and there was a pounding
on the roof of the house. Outside, as though it came from the opposite
bank of the beaver pond, another voice said:
"Oh, ho! You can't get away from me that way. I'll be there in a
minute!"
There was a splashing in the water, and the voice on the beaver house
roof begged once more:
"Oh, will no one let me in? Toodle! Noodle!"
"Who--who are you?" asked Crackie, thinking maybe it was a bad fox,
trying to play a trick on her, and pretending to be some one in
trouble. "Who are you, and what is the matter?" went on Crackie.
"Oh, I am Joie Kat, the brother of Tommie and Kittie Kat," was the
answer. "I was out walking in the woods, and a bad dog chased me. I ran
up a tree and out on a limb that was high up in the air, right over
your house. Then I slipped and fell, but the dog still kept after me.
I fell on the roof of your house, where I am now, and if you don't let
me in that dog will soon swim over here from shore and grab me. Oh,
please, let me in, whoever you are!"
"I'm Crackie Flat-tail," said the little beaver girl. "I couldn't go to
school today because I have the sniffle-snuffles, but my brothers went,
and I'm home all alone, and--"
"Oh, if you please," meaouwed Joie, "you can tell me all that when I
get in. The dog is coming--the dog is swimming to get me!"
And Crackie could hear the dog going: "Bow--wow--wow," like anything;
really she could.
"Of course, I'll let you in," said the little beaver girl, so she
opened a window near the roof, and Joie Kat, being a very good climbing
kitten boy, easily got in it, and so he was safe from the dog for a
while, anyhow.
"Oh, ho!" growled the dog, when he saw what Joie had done. "You needn't
think you can get away from me. I'm going to stay here until you come
out; that's what I'll do!"
"Will he?" asked Crackie.
"I--I'm afraid he will," said Joie, sadly like.
"Just wait until my Grandpa Whackum comes back," said Crackie. "He'll
attend to your case; you bad old dog!" and, leaning out of the window,
Crackie threw the potato masher at the growling-barking creature. But
girls--even beaver girls--can't throw very straight, so Crackie did not
hit the dog.
"Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!" laughed the dog. "You can't scare me! I'm not afraid
of you."
"Oh, what shall I do?" asked Joie Kat, who was all in a tremble. "I
wish I'd never climbed the big tree!"
"Oh, I'll think of a way to save you," said Crackie.
Just then along came Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all.
He saw the dog on shore, but, very wisely, Grandpa Whackum dived down
under water and swam into the house without the dog seeing him. Then
Crackie and Joie told the old beaver gentleman what had happened.
"Ha! I'll fix that dog!" cried Grandpa Whackum. So he called all the
other big beavers together under water and they slipped up on shore
behind that dog, when he wasn't looking, and when he was just thinking
and wondering how he could get Joie, all the beavers threw mud with
their tails all over that dog until he looked like a mud pie, or maybe
a mud puddle.
"Oh, wow!" cried the dog, and then he had to run home and jump in the
bath tub to get clean.
"Now he's gone and you can safely go home, Joie," said Crackie.
"Oh, but your house is in the middle of water and I can't swim," said
the little kitten boy. "How can I get home?"
"I'll tell you," spoke Crackie. "We'll get a wooden box and make a
little boat of it and in that you can sail to shore, and go home
without even getting your tail wet."
And that's what they did. Grandpa Whackum made the box boat and
Crackie helped Joie get into it through the outside upper window, for
the front door of the beaver house was under water. Then Joie sailed
safely home, and he never climbed tall trees again.
So no more now, but in the next story, if the clothes basket doesn't go
to sleep out in the hammock and catch cold in its handles, I'll tell
you about Toodle and Jimmie Wibblewobble.
STORY XXVIII
TOODLE AND JIMMIE
Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boys, were playing on
the bank of the pond in which their house was built. They had made
a mud slide, which was slippery with water, and down that they were
coasting, having almost as much fun as if there was snow and ice on the
ground and they had red sleds, with blue tops, to ride on down the long
hill.
"Come on!" called Toodle, when he had slid down backward, just to see
how it would feel, "let's go down backward again, Noodle, and see who
will slide the farthest."
"All right," agreed Noodle. "Wait until I get to the top, so we can
both start even and at the same time."
Up the mud slide, which was just a bank of dirt near an old stump,
scrambled Toodle and Noodle and then they got ready to go down backward.
"Are you all ready?" asked Noodle.
"All ready!" cried Toodle.
"Then here we go!" shouted Noodle, and down the mud slide they went
backward.
But, oh, dear me! something happened. Just as they got to the bottom of
the little slippery hill, old Mr. Chunky-lunky, the biggest, fattest
beaver gentleman in the pond, came walking along. He was so fat that
he couldn't see his shoes when he stood up straight and his neck was
so thick he couldn't bend it, so of course he did not see Toodle and
Noodle sliding right toward him.
The first thing he knew his hind paws were knocked out from under him,
and down he came--"ker-flummux!"
"Ugh!" grunted old Mr. Chunky-lunky, and that was all he could say just
then, for the breath was knocked out of him. He nearly sat down on
Toodle and Noodle, who had bumped into him without in the least meaning
to, and, if old Mr. Chunky-lunky had sat down on either of the beaver
boys he would have squashed him flatter than a pancake. But this did
not happen, I'm glad to say.
"Why--er--what--er--what happened?" panted old Mr. Chunky-lunky as he
got up and brushed the dirt out of his ears.
"I--I guess we happened," said Toodle.
"You see, we were sliding down the mud-hill backward," explained Noodle.
"No," spoke Mr. Chunky-lunky, "I didn't see--that was the trouble.
But, never mind, boys, you didn't mean to do it, I'm sure."
"Oh, no, we wouldn't think of doing such a thing!" cried Noodle. "Would
we, Toodle?"
"No, indeed!" answered Toodle, and then he picked up old Mr.
Chunky-lunky's hat to hand to him. The hat was a little muddy, but just
then along came Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck, and with his wing
feathers he dusted the dirt off the beaver gentleman's hat until it was
as good as new.
"Now, boys, don't slide down any more hills backward," said old Mr.
Chunky-lunky as he waddled away, with his head high in the air, because
he was too fat to look down.
Well, Toodle and Noodle played on the mud slide for some time longer,
and then, all of a sudden--no, a big black bear did not jump out from
behind a lollypop ice cream cone. I was going to put a bear in this
story, but I've changed my mind about it.
So, all of a sudden, Mrs. Flat-tail called out from the front stoop:
"Hi, Noodle, Toodle! I want one of you to go to the store for me."
"Let Toodle go, ma!" cried Noodle.