I Love Animal Stories. Aesop

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СКАЧАТЬ Paddy an engineer. What do you do with your logs and branches, Paddy?”

      “Put them in my food-pile, out there where the water is deep near my house,” replied Paddy promptly. “The bark I eat, and the bare sticks I use to keep my house and dam in repair. In the late fall I cut enough trees to keep me in food all winter. When my pond is covered with ice I have nothing to worry about; my food supply is below the ice. When I am hungry I swim out under the ice, get a stick, take it back into my house and eat the bark. Then I take the bare stick outside to use when needed on my dam or house.”

      “How did you come to make this fine pond?” asked Old Mother Nature.

      “Oh, I just happened to come exploring up the Laughing Brook and found there was plenty of food here and a good place for a pond,” replied Paddy. “I thought I would like to live here. Down where my dam is, the Laughing Brook was shallow—just the place for a dam.”

      “Tell us why you wanted a pond and how you built that dam,” commanded Old Mother Nature.

      “Why, I had to have a pond, if I was to stay here,” replied Paddy, as if every one must understand that. “The Laughing Brook wasn't deep or big enough for me to live here safely. If it had been, I would have made my home in the bank and not bothered with a house or dam. But it wasn't, so I had to make a pond. It required a lot of hard work, but it is worth all it cost.

      “First, I cut a lot of brush and young trees and placed them in the Laughing Brook in that shallow place, with the butts pointing up-stream. I kept them in place by piling mud and stones on them. Then I kept piling on more sticks and brush and mud. The water brought down leaves and floating stuff, and this caught in the dam and helped fill it in. I dug a lot of mud in front of it and used this to fill in the spaces between the sticks. This made the water deeper in front of the dam and at the same time kept it from getting through. As the water backed up, of course it made a pond. I kept making my dam longer and higher, and the longer and higher it became the bigger the pond grew. When it was big enough and deep enough to suit me, I stopped work on the dam and built my house out there.”

      Everybody turned to look at Paddy's house, the roof of which stood high out of water a little way from the dam. “Tell us how you built that,” said Old Mother Nature quietly.

      “Oh, I just made a big platform of sticks and mud out there where it was deep enough for me to be sure that the water could not freeze clear to the bottom, even in the coldest weather,” replied Paddy, in a matter-of-fact tone. “I built it up until it was above water. Then I built the walls and roof of sticks and mud, just as you see them there. Inside I have a fine big room with a comfortable bed of shredded wood. I have two openings in the floor with a long passage leading from each down through the foundations and opening at the bottom of the pond. Of course, these are filled with water. Some houses have only one passage, but I like two. These are the only entrances to my house.

      “Every fall I repair my walls and roof, adding sticks and mud and turf, so that now they are very thick. Late in the fall I sometimes plaster the outside with mud. This freezes hard, and no enemy who may reach my house on the ice can tear it open. I guess that's all.”

      Peter Rabbit drew a long breath. “What dreadful lot of work,” said he. “Do you work all the time?”

      Paddy chuckled. “No, Peter,” said he. And Old Mother Nature nodded in approval. “Quite right,” said she. “Quite right. Are there any more questions?”

      “Do you eat nothing but bark?” It was Happy Jack Squirrel who spoke.

      “Oh, no,” replied Paddy. “In summer I eat berries, mushrooms, grass and the leaves and stems of a number of plants. In winter I vary my fare with lily roots and the roots of alder and willow. But bark is my principal food.”

      Old Mother Nature waited a few minutes, but as there were no more questions she added a few words. “Now I hope you understand why I am so proud of Paddy the Beaver, and why I told you that he is a lumberman, builder and engineer,” said she. “For the next lesson we will take up the Rat family.”

      Chapter XIII

       A Worker and a Robber

       Table of Contents

      “Now we come to the largest family of the Rodent order, the Rat family, which of course includes the Mice,” said Old Mother Nature, after calling school to order at the old meeting-place. “And the largest member of the family reminds me very much of the one we learned about yesterday.”

      “I know!” cried Peter Rabbit. “You mean Jerry Muskrat.”

      “Go to the head of the class, Peter,” said Old Mother Nature, smiling. “Jerry is the very one, the largest member of the Rat family. Sometimes he is spoken of as a little cousin of Paddy the Beaver. Probably this is because he looks something like a small Beaver, builds a house in the water as Paddy does, and lives in very much the same way. The truth is, he is no more closely related to Paddy than he is to the rest of you. He is a true Rat. He is called Muskrat because he carries with him a scent called musk. It is not an unpleasant scent, like that of Jimmy Skunk, and isn't used for the same purpose. Jerry uses his to tell his friends where he has been. He leaves a little of it at the places he visits. Some folks call him Musquash, but Muskrat is better.

      JERRY MUSKRAT. He is the largest of American Rats. Note how his tail is flattened.

      “Jerry is seldom found far from the water and then only when he is seeking a new home. He is rather slow and awkward on land; but in the water he is quite at home, as all of you know who have visited the Smiling Pool. He can dive and swim under water a long distance, though not as far as Paddy the Beaver.”

      “Has he webbed hind feet like Paddy?” piped up Jumper the Hare.

      “Yes and no,” replied Old Mother Nature. “They are not fully webbed as Paddy's are, but there is a little webbing between some of the toes, enough to be of great help in swimming. His tail is of greater use in swimming than is Paddy's. It is bare and scaly, but instead of being flat top and bottom it is flattened on the sides, and he uses it as a propeller, moving it rapidly from side to side.

      “Like Paddy he has a dark brown outer coat, lighter underneath than on his back and sides, and like Paddy he has a very warm soft under coat, through which the water cannot get and which keeps him comfortable, no matter how cold the water is. You have all seen his house in the Smiling Pool. He builds it in much the same way that Paddy builds his, but instead of sticks he cuts and uses rushes. Of course it is not nearly as large as Paddy's house, because Jerry is himself so much smaller. It is arranged much the same, with a comfortable bedroom and one or more passages down to deep water. In winter Jerry spends much of his time in this house, going out only for food. Then he lives chiefly on lily roots and roots of other water plants, digging them up and taking them back to his house to eat. When the ice is clear you can sometimes see him swimming below.”

      “I know,” spoke up Peter Rabbit. “Once I was crossing the Smiling Pool on the ice and saw him right under me.”

      “Jerry doesn't build dams, but he sometimes digs little canals along the bottom where the water isn't deep enough to suit him,” continued Old Mother Nature. “Sometimes in the winter Jerry and Mrs. Jerry share their home with two or three friends. If there is a good bank Jerry usually has another home in that. He makes СКАЧАТЬ