The Tale of Brownie Beaver | Page 5

to do anything," said Grandaddy Beaver. "The spillways of this dam ought to be made as big as possible, to let the freshet pass through. But I can't do it, for I can't swim as well as I could once."
Brownie Beaver looked at the rushing water which poured over the top of the dam in a hundred places and was already carrying off mud and sticks, eating the dam away before his very eyes.
"I'll save the dam!" he cried. "You?" Grandaddy Beaver exclaimed. "Why, what do you think you can do?" Being so old, he couldn't help believing that other people were too young to do difficult things.
"Watch me and I'll show you!" Brownie Beaver told him. And without saying another word he swam to the nearest spillway and began making it bigger.
Sometimes he had to fight the freshet madly, to keep from being swept over the dam himself. Sometimes, too, as he stood on the dam it crumbled beneath him and he found himself swimming again.
How many narrow escapes he had that day Brownie Beaver could never remember. When they happened, he didn't have time to count them, he was working so busily. And if old Grandaddy Beaver hadn't told everyone afterward, how Brownie saved the great dam from being swept away, and how hard he had worked, and how he had swum fearlessly into the torrent, people wouldn't have known anything about it.
To be sure, they had noticed that the water went down almost as suddenly as it rose. But they hadn't stopped to think that there must have been some reason for that. And when they learned that Brownie Beaver was the reason, the whole village gave him a vote of thanks.
They wanted to give him a gold-headed cane, too. But they were unable to find one anywhere.
When Brownie Beaver heard of that he said it was just as well, because he seldom walked far on land and there wasn't much use in a person's carrying a cane when he swam, anyhow. Although it was sometimes done, he had always considered it a silly practice--and one that he would not care to follow.

VI
A HAPPY THOUGHT
Brownie Beaver liked to know what was going on in the world. But living far from Pleasant Valley as he did, he seldom heard any news before it was quite old.
"I wish--" he said to Mr. Crow one day, when that old gentleman was making him a visit--"I wish someone would start a newspaper in this neighborhood."
Mr. Crow told Brownie that he would be glad to bring him an old newspaper whenever he happened to find one. "Thank you!" Brownie Beaver said. "You're very kind. But an old newspaper would be of no use to me."
"Why not?" Mr. Crow inquired. "They make very good beds, I've been told. And I suppose that is what you want one for."
"Not at all!" Brownie replied. "I'd like to know what's happening over in Pleasant Valley. It takes so long for news to reach us here in our pond that it's often hardly worth listening to when we hear it--it's so old. Now, what I'd really prefer is a newspaper that would tell me everything that's going to happen a week later."
Mr. Crow said he never heard of a newspaper like that.
"Well, somebody ought to start one," Brownie Beaver answered.
Mr. Crow thought deeply for some minutes without saying a word. And at last He cried suddenly:
"I have an idea!"
"Have you?" Brownie Beaver exclaimed. "What is it, Mr. Crow?"
"I'll be your newspaper!" Mr. Crow told him.
At that Brownie Beaver looked somewhat doubtful.
"That's very kind of you," he said. "But I'm afraid it wouldn't do me much good. You're so black that the ink wouldn't show on you at all--- unless," he added, "they use white ink to print on you."
"You don't understand," old Mr. Crow said. "What I mean is this: I'll fly over here once a week and tell you everything that's happened. Of course," he continued, "I can't very well tell you everything that is going to take place the following week. But I'll do my best."
Brownie Beaver was delighted. And when Mr. Crow asked him what day he wanted his newspaper Brownie said that Saturday afternoon would be a good time.
"That's the last day of the week," Brownie Beaver remarked, "so you ought to have plenty of news for me. You know, if you came the first day of the week there would be very little to tell."
"That's so!" said Mr. Crow. "Well say 'Saturday,' then. And you shall have your newspaper without fail--unless," he explained--"unless there should be a bad storm, or unless I should be ill. And, of course, if Farmer Green should want me to help him in his cornfield, I wouldn't be able to come. There might be other things, too,