the last to learn that Paddy had come down from the North to make his home in the Green Forest, and here was a chance to speak his mind.
“Thief! thief! thief!” he screamed in his harshest voice.
Paddy the Beaver looked up with a twinkle in his eyes. “Hello, Mr. Jay! I see you haven’t any better manners than your cousin who lives up where I came from,” said he.
“Thief! thief! thief!” screamed Sammy, hopping up and down, he was so angry.
“Meaning yourself, I suppose,” said Paddy. “I never did see an honest Jay, and I don’t suppose I ever will.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Peter Rabbit, who had quite forgotten that he was hiding.
“Oh, how do you do, Mr. Rabbit? I’m very glad you have called on me this morning,” said Paddy, just as if he hadn’t known all the time just where Peter was. “Mr. Jay seems to have gotten out of the wrong side of his bed this morning.”
Peter laughed again. “He always does,” said he. “If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be happy. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but he is happy right now. He doesn’t know it, but he is. He always is happy when he can show what a bad temper he has.”
Sammy Jay glared down at Peter. Then he glared at Paddy. And all the time he still shrieked “Thief!” as hard as ever he could. Paddy kept right on working, paying no attention to Sammy. This made Sammy more angry than ever. He kept coming nearer and nearer until at last he was in the very tree that Paddy happened to be cutting. Paddy’s eyes twinkled.
“I’m no thief!” he exclaimed suddenly.
“You are! You are! Thief! Thief!” shrieked Sammy. “You’re stealing our trees!”
“They’re not your trees,” retorted Paddy. “They belong to the Green Forest, and the Green Forest belongs to all who love it, and we all have a perfect right to take what we need from it. I need these trees, and I’ve just as much right to take them as you have to take the fat acorns that drop in the fall.”
“MR. JAY SEEMS TO HAVE GOTTEN OUT OF THE WRONG SIDE OF HIS BED THIS MORNING.”
“No such thing!” screamed Sammy. You know he can’t talk without screaming, and the more excited he gets, the louder he screams. “No such thing! Acorns are food. They are meant to eat. I have to have them to live. But you are cutting down whole trees. You are spoiling the Green Forest. You don’t belong here. Nobody invited you, and nobody wants you. You’re a thief!”
Then up spoke Jerry Muskrat, who, you know, is cousin to Paddy the Beaver.
“Don’t you mind him,” said he, pointing at Sammy Jay. “Nobody does. He’s the greatest trouble-maker in the Green Forest or on the Green Meadows. He would steal from his own relatives. Don’t mind what he says, Cousin Paddy.”
Now all this time Paddy had been working away just as if no one was around. Just as Jerry stopped speaking, Paddy thumped the ground with his tail, which is his way of warning people to watch out, and suddenly scurried away as fast as he could run. Sammy Jay was so surprised that he couldn’t find his tongue for a minute, and he didn’t notice anything peculiar about that tree. Then suddenly he felt himself falling. With a frightened scream, he spread his wings to fly, but branches of the tree swept him down with them right into the Laughing Brook.
You see while Sammy had been speaking his mind, Paddy the Beaver had cut down the very tree in which he was sitting.
Sammy wasn’t hurt, but he was wet and muddy and terribly frightened,—the most miserable looking Jay that ever was seen. It was too much for all the little people who were hiding. They just had to laugh. Then they all came out to pay their respects to Paddy the Beaver.
V. Paddy Keeps His Promise
Paddy the Beaver kept right on working just as if he hadn’t any visitors. You see, it is a big undertaking to build a dam. And when that was done there was a house to build and a supply of food for the winter to cut and store. Oh, Paddy the Beaver had no time for idle gossip, you may be sure! So he kept right on building his dam. It didn’t look much like a dam at first, and some of Paddy’s visitors turned up their noses when they first saw it. They had heard stories of what a wonderful dam-builder Paddy was, and they had expected to see something like the smooth, grass-covered bank with which Farmer Brown kept the Big River from running back on his low lands. Instead, all they saw was a great pile of poles and sticks which looked like anything but a dam.
“Pooh!” exclaimed Billy Mink, “I guess we needn’t worry about the Laughing Brook and the Smiling Pool, if that is the best Paddy can do. Why, the water of the Laughing Brook will work through that in no time.”
Of course Paddy heard him, but he said nothing, just kept right on working.
“Just look at the way he has laid those sticks!” continued Billy Mink. “Seems as if any one would know enough to lay them across the Laughing Brook instead of just the other way. I could build a better dam than that.”
Paddy said nothing; he just kept right on working.
“Yes, Sir,” Billy boasted. “I could build a better dam than that. Why, that pile of sticks will never stop the water.”
“Is something the matter with your eyesight, Billy Mink?” inquired Jerry Muskrat.
“Of course not!” retorted Billy indignantly. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing much, only you don’t seem to notice that already the Laughing Brook is over its banks above Paddy’s dam,” replied Jerry, who had been studying the dam with a great deal of interest.
Billy looked a wee bit foolish, for sure enough there was a little pool just above the dam, and it was growing bigger.
Paddy still kept at work, saying nothing. He was digging in front of the dam now, and the mud and grass he dug up he stuffed in between the ends of the sticks and patted down with his hands. He did this all along the front of the dam and on top of it too, wherever he thought it was needed. Of course this made it harder for the water to work through, and the little pond above the dam began to grow faster. It wasn’t a great while before it was nearly to the top of the dam, which at first was very low. Then Paddy brought more sticks. This was easier now, because he could float them down from where he was cutting. He would put them in place on the top of the dam, then hurry for more. Wherever it was needed, he would put in mud. He even rolled a few stones in to help hold the mass.
So the dam grew and grew, and so did the pond above the dam. Of course, it took a good many days to build so big a dam, and a lot of hard work! Every morning the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows would visit it, and every morning they would find that it had grown a great deal in the night, for that is when Paddy likes best to work.
By this time, the Laughing Brook had stopped laughing, and down in the Smiling Pool there was hardly water enough for the minnows to feel safe a minute. Billy Mink had stopped making fun of the dam, and all the little people who live in the Laughing Brook and the Smiling Pool were terribly worried.
To be sure Paddy had warned them of what he was going to do, and had promised that just as soon as his pond
