The Tale of Brownie Beaver | Page 4

it.
"You young folks can poke fun at me if you want to," said Grandaddy Beaver, "but I'm a-going right ahead and make my house as strong as I can. For when the freshet gets here I don't want my home washed away."
All day long people would stop to watch the old fellow at work upon his roof. And everybody thought it was a great joke--until the second day came and everybody noticed that it was raining just as hard as ever.
But no one except Grandaddy Beaver had ever heard of a freshet at that time of year. So even then nobody else went to work on his house, though some people did stop smiling. A freshet, you know, is a serious thing.
As the second day passed, the rain seemed to fall harder. And still Grandaddy Beaver kept putting new sticks on the roof of his house and plastering mud over them. And at last Brownie Beaver began to think that perhaps the old gentleman was right, after all, and that maybe everybody else was wrong.
So Brownie went home and set to work. And all his neighbors at once began to smile at him.
But Brownie Beaver didn't mind that.
"My roof needed mending, anyhow," he said. "And if we should have a freshet. I'll be ready for it. And if we don't have one, there'll be no harm done."
[Illustration: Mr. Crow Called Down the Chimney]
Now, all this time the water had been rising slowly. But that was no more than everyone expected, since it was raining so hard. But when the second night came, the water began to rise very fast. It rose so quickly that several families found their bedroom floors under water almost before they knew it.
Then old Grandaddy Beaver went through the village and stopped at every door.
"What do you think about it now?" he asked. "Is it a freshet or isn't it?"
In the houses where the water had climbed above the bedroom floors the people all agreed that it was a freshet and that Grandaddy Beaver had been right all the time. But there were still plenty of people who thought the old gentleman was mistaken.
"The water won't come any higher," they said. "It never has, at this time of year." But they looked a bit worried, in spite of what they said.
"It's a-going to be the worst freshet that's happened since you were born," their caller croaked. "You mark my words!"
When he came to Brownie Beaver's house Grandaddy found that there was one person, at least, that had taken his advice.
"I see you're all ready for the freshet!" the old gentleman remarked. "They laughed at me; but I was right," he said.
"They laughed at me, too," Brownie Beaver told him.
"There's nobody in this village that'll laugh again tonight," Grandaddy said very solemnly, "for there's a-going to be a flood before morning."

V
BROWNIE SAVES THE DAM
Brownie Beaver was always glad that he had taken Grandaddy's advice about the freshet. And Brownie's neighbors were glad that he had, too. For that was really the only thing that saved the village from being carried away by the flood of water that swept down upon the pond, after it had rained for two days and two nights.
The pond rose so quickly and the water rushed past so fast that people had to scramble out of their houses and begin working on them, to keep them from being washed away.
That rush of water meant only one thing. The pond was full and running over! And just as likely as not the dam would be carried away--the dam on which Grandaddy Beaver had worked when he was a youngster, and on which his own grandaddy had worked before him. It would take years and years to build another such dam as that.
Now, with almost everybody working on his own house, there was almost no one left to work upon the dam. But people never stopped to think about that. They never once remembered that out of the whole village old Grandaddy and Brownie Beaver were the only persons whose houses had been made ready for the freshet and that those two were the only people with nothing to do at home.
"There'll be plenty to help save the dam," everybody said to himself. "I'll just work on my house."
Now, Brownie Beaver knew that there was nothing more he could do to make his house safe, so he swam over to the dam, expecting to find a good many of his neighbors there. But old Grandaddy Beaver was the only other person he found. And he seemed worried.
"It's a great pity!" he said to Brownie. "Here's this fine dam, which has taken so many years to build, and it's a-going to be washed away-- you mark my words!"
"What makes you think that?" asked Brownie.
"There's nobody here