by
Thornton W. Burgess

I.
Paddy the Beaver Begins Work

Work, work all the night
While the stars are shining bright;
Work, work all the day;
I have got no time to play.

This little rhyme Paddy the Beaver made up as he toiled at building the dam which was to make the pond he so much desired deep in the Green Forest. Of course it wasn’t quite true, that about working all night and all day. Nobody could do that, you know, and keep it up. Everybody has to rest and sleep.

Yes, and everybody has to play a little to be at their best. So it wasn’t quite true that Paddy worked all day after working all night. But it was true that Paddy had no time to play. He had too much to do. He had had his playtime during the long summer, and now he had to get ready for the long cold winter.

Now of all the little workers in the Green Forest, on the Green Meadows, and in the Smiling Pool, none can compare with Paddy the Beaver, not even his cousin, Jerry Muskrat.

Happy Jack Squirrel and Striped Chipmunk store up food for the long cold months when rough Brother North Wind and Jack Frost rule, and Jerry Muskrat builds a fine house wherein to keep warm and comfortable, but all this is as nothing to the work of Paddy the Beaver.

As I said before, Paddy had had a long playtime through the summer. He had wandered up and down the Laughing Brook. He had followed it way up to the place where it started. And all the time he had been studying and studying to make sure that he wanted to stay in the Green Forest.

In the first place, he had to be sure that there was plenty of the kind of food that he likes. Then he had to be equally sure that he could make a pond near where this particular food grew. Last of all, he had to satisfy himself that if he did make a pond and build a home, he would be reasonably safe in it.

And all these things he had done in his playtime. Now he was ready to go to work, and when Paddy begins work, he sticks to it until it is finished. He says that is the only way to succeed, and you know and I know that he is right.

Now Paddy the Beaver can see at night just as Reddy Fox and Peter Rabbit and Bobby Coon can, and he likes the night best, because he feels safest then. But he can see in the daytime too, and when he feels that he is perfectly safe and no one is watching, he works then too.

Of course the first thing to do was to build a dam across the Laughing Brook to make the pond he so much needed. He chose a low open place deep in the Green Forest, around the edge of which grew many young aspen-trees, the bark of which is his favorite food. Through the middle of this open place flowed the Laughing Brook. At the lower edge was just the place for a dam.

It would not have to be very long, and when it was finished and the water was stopped in the Laughing Brook, it would just have to flow over the low open place and make a pond there. Paddy’s eyes twinkled when he first saw it. It was right then that he made up his mind to stay in the Green Forest.

So now that he was ready to begin his dam he went up the Laughing Brook to a place where alders and willows grew, and there he began work; that work was the cutting of a great number of trees by means of his big front teeth which were given him for just this purpose. And as he worked, Paddy was happy, for one can never be truly happy who does no work.

II.
Paddy Plans a Pond

Paddy the Beaver was busy cutting down trees for the dam he had planned to build. Up in the woods of the North from which he had come to the Green Forest he had learned all about tree-cutting and dam-building and canal-digging and house-building. Paddy’s father and mother had been very wise in the ways of the Beaver world, and Paddy had been quick to learn.

So now he knew just what to do and the best way of doing it. You know a great many people waste time and labor doing things the wrong way, so that they have to be done over again. They forget to be sure they are right, and so they go ahead until they find they are wrong, and all their work goes for nothing.

But Paddy the Beaver isn’t this kind. Paddy would never have leaped into the spring with the steep sides without looking, as Grandfather Frog did. So now he carefully picked out the trees to cut. He could not afford to waste time cutting down a tree that wasn’t going to be just what he wanted when it was down.

When he was sure that the tree was right, he looked up at the top to find out whether, when he had cut it, it would fall clear of other trees. He had learned to do that when he was quite young and heedless. He remembered just how he had felt when after working hard, oh, so hard, to cut a big tree, he had warned all his friends to get out of the way so that they would not be hurt when it fell, and then it hadn’t fallen at all because the top had caught in another tree. He was so mortified that he didn’t get over it for a long time.

So now he made sure that a tree was going to fall clear and just where he wanted it. Then he sat up on his hind legs, and with his great broad tail for a brace, began to make the chips fly. You know Paddy has the most wonderful teeth for cutting. They are long and broad and sharp. He would begin by making a deep bite, and then another just a little way below.

Then he would pry out the little piece of wood between. When he had cut very deep on one side so that the tree would fall that way, he would work around to the other side. Just as soon as the tree began to lean and he was sure that it was going to fall, he would scamper away so as to be out of danger. He loved to see those tall trees lean forward slowly, then faster and faster, till they struck the ground with a crash.

Just as soon as they were down, he would trim off the branches until the trees were just long poles. This was easy work, for he could take off a good-sized branch with one bite. On many he left their bushy tops. When he had trimmed them to suit him and had cut them into the right lengths, he would tug and pull them down to the place where he meant to build his dam.

There he placed the poles side by side, not across the Laughing Brook like a bridge, but with the big ends pointing up the Laughing Brook, which was quite broad but shallow right there. To keep them from floating away, he rolled stones and piled mud on the bushy ends.

Clear across on both sides he laid those poles until the land began to rise. Then he dragged more poles and piled on top of these and wedged short sticks crosswise between them.

And all the time the Laughing Brook was having harder and harder work to run. Its merry laugh grew less merry and finally almost stopped, because, you see, the water could not get through between all those poles and sticks fast enough.

It was just about that time that the little people of the Smiling Pool decided that it was time to see just what Paddy was doing, and they started up the Laughing Brook, leaving only Grandfather Frog and the tadpoles in the Smiling Pool, which for a little while would smile no more.

III.
Paddy Has Many Visitors

Paddy the Beaver knew perfectly well that he would have visitors just as soon as he began to build his dam. He expected a lot of them. You see, he knew that none of them ever had seen a Beaver at work unless perhaps it was Prickly Porky the Porcupine, who also had come down from the North.

So as he worked he kept his ears open, and he smiled to himself as he heard a little rustle here and then a little rustle there. He knew just what those little rustles meant. Each one meant another visitor. Yes, Sir, each rustle meant another visitor, and yet not one had shown himself.

Paddy chuckled. “Seems to me that you are dreadfully afraid to show yourselves,” said he in a loud voice, just as if he were talking to nobody in particular. Everything was still. There wasn’t so much as a rustle after Paddy spoke. He chuckled again. He could just feel ever so many eyes watching him, though he didn’t see a single pair.

And he knew that the reason his visitors were hiding so carefully was because they were afraid of him. You see, Paddy was much bigger than most of the little meadow and forest people, and they didn’t know what kind of a temper he might have. It is always safest to be very distrustful of strangers. That is one of the very first things taught all little meadow and forest children.

Of course, Paddy knew all about this. He had been brought up that way. “Be sure, and then you’ll never be sorry” had been one of his mother’s favorite sayings, and he had always remembered it. Indeed, it had saved him a great deal of trouble.

So now he was perfectly willing to go right on working and let his hidden visitors watch him until they were sure that he meant them no harm. You see, he himself felt quite sure that none of them was big enough to do him any harm.

Little Joe Otter was the only one he had any doubts about, and he felt quite sure that Little Joe wouldn’t try to pick a quarrel. So he kept right on cutting trees, trimming off the branches, and hauling the trunks down to the dam he was building. Some of them he floated down the Laughing Brook. This was easier.

Now when the little people of the Smiling Pool, who were the first to find out that Paddy the Beaver had come to the Green Forest, had started up the Laughing Brook to see what he was doing, they had told the Merry Little Breezes where they were going. The Merry Little Breezes had been greatly excited.

They couldn’t understand how a stranger could have been living in the Green Forest without their knowledge. You see, they quite forgot that they very seldom wandered to the deepest part of the Green Forest. Of course they started at once as fast as they could go to tell all the other little people who live on or around the Green Meadows, all but Old Man Coyote.

For some reason they thought it best not to tell him. They were a little doubtful about Old Man Coyote. He was so big and strong and so sly and smart that all his neighbors were afraid of him. Perhaps the Merry Little Breezes had this fact in mind, and knew that none would dare go to call on the stranger if they knew that Old Man Coyote was going too.

Anyway, they simply passed the time of day with Old Man Coyote and hurried on to tell every one else, and the very last one they met was Sammy Jay.

Sammy was terribly put out to think that anything should be going on that he didn’t know about first. You know he is very fond of prying into the affairs of other people, and he loves dearly to boast that there is nothing going on in the Green Forest or on the Green Meadows that he doesn’t know about.

So now his pride was hurt, and he was in a terrible rage as he started after the Merry Little Breezes for the place deep in the Green Forest where they said Paddy the Beaver was at work. He didn’t believe a word of it, but he would see for himself.

IV.
Sammy Jay Speaks His Mind

When Sammy Jay reached the place deep in the Green Forest where Paddy the Beaver was so hard at work, he didn’t hide as had the little four-footed people. You see, of course, he had no reason to hide, because he felt perfectly safe. Paddy had just cut a big tree, and it fell with a crash as Sammy came hurrying up.

Sammy was so surprised that for a minute he couldn’t find his tongue. He had not supposed that anybody but Farmer Brown or Farmer Brown’s boy could cut down so large a tree as that, and it quite took his breath away. But he got it again in a minute. He was boiling with anger, anyway, to think that he should have been the last to learn that Paddy had come down from the North to make his home in the Green Forest, and here was a chance to speak his mind.

“Thief! thief! thief!” he screamed in his harshest voice.

Paddy the Beaver looked up with a twinkle in his eyes. “Hello, Mr. Jay! I see you haven’t any better manners than your cousin who lives up where I came from,” said he.

“Thief! thief! thief!” screamed Sammy, hopping up and down, he was so angry.

“Meaning yourself, I suppose,” said Paddy. “I never did see an honest Jay, and I don’t suppose I ever will.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Peter Rabbit, who had quite forgotten that he was hiding.

“Oh, how do you do, Mr. Rabbit? I’m very glad you have called on me this morning,” said Paddy, just as if he hadn’t known all the time just where Peter was. “Mr. Jay seems to have gotten out of the wrong side of his bed this morning.”

Peter laughed again. “He always does,” said he. “If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be happy. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but he is happy right now. He doesn’t know it, but he is. He always is happy when he can show what a bad temper he has.”

Sammy Jay glared down at Peter. Then he glared at Paddy. And all the time he still shrieked “Thief!” as hard as ever he could. Paddy kept right on working, paying no attention to Sammy. This made Sammy more angry than ever. He kept coming nearer and nearer until at last he was in the very tree that Paddy happened to be cutting. Paddy’s eyes twinkled.

“I’m no thief!” he exclaimed suddenly.

“You are! You are! Thief! Thief!” shrieked Sammy. “You’re stealing our trees!”

“They’re not your trees,” retorted Paddy. “They belong to the Green Forest, and the Green Forest belongs to all who love it, and we all have a perfect right to take what we need from it. I need these trees, and I’ve just as much right to take them as you have to take the fat acorns that drop in the fall.”