THE ADVENTURES OF PADDY THE BEAVER

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER

I Paddy the Beaver Begins Work.

II Paddy Plans a Pond.

III Paddy Has Many Visitors.

IV Sammy Jay Speaks His Mind.

V Paddy Keeps His Promise.

VI Farmer Brown's Boy Grows Curious.

VII Farmer Brown's Boy Gets Another Surprise.

VIII Peter Rabbit Gets a Ducking.

IX Paddy Plans a House.

X Paddy Starts His House

XI Peter Rabbit and Jerry Muskrat are Puzzled.

XII Jerry Muskrat Learns Something.

XIII The Queer Storehouse.

XIV A Footprint in the Mud.

XV Sammy Jay Makes Paddy a Call.

XVI Old Man Coyote Is Very Crafty.

XVII Old Man Coyote is Disappointed.

XVIII Old Man Coyote Tries Another Plan.

XIX Paddy and Sammy Jay Become Friends.

XX Sammy Jay Offers To Help Paddy.

XXI Paddy and Sammy Jay Work Together.

XXII Paddy Finishes His Harvest.


CHAPTER 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.