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[Pg 271]
[Pg 272] 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.

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.