CHAPTER IXTOTO IN A TRAP
Toto looked up in the tree from which the mewing noise came. There he saw a black cat. The cat sat in a place where a branch joined the main trunk of the tree, and Toto wondered why, if she got up there, she could not get down.
“What happened to you?” asked the beaver boy.
“A dog chased me,” was the answer. “I was out walking in the fields, and a dog ran along after me. I was so frightened that I scampered as fast as I could. Then I ran up this tree. I hardly knew what I was doing, or how I got up so high. But here I am, and though it seemed easy to get up, I’m afraid to try to get down. I might slip and fall.”
“Did you walk up the tree?” asked Toto, wondering why she couldn’t walk down again.
“No, I stuck my claws into the bark and pulled myself up,” answered the black cat. “But it’s harder to go down. I don’t know what to do! I wish that dog had let me alone.”
“Was the dog who chased you named Don?” asked Toto. “I know him.”
“Do you? Why, so do I!” exclaimed Blackie. “No, it wasn’t Don who chased me. He and I are good friends. This was a strange dog, and I don’t like him. He has made a lot of trouble for me. Maybe I’ll never get out of this tree, and I’ll never again see the kind lady and little girl I live with.”
“Oh, yes, you will!”said Toto cheerfully. “I’ll help you get down out of the tree.”
“Can you climb up here?” asked Blackie.
“No, I can’t climb trees, but I can gnaw them down,” answered the beaver boy. “You just wait. This is a poplar tree, and the bark is very good to eat. You just wait up there. I’ll gnaw through the tree, it will fall, and you can then easily get to the ground.”
“But when the tree falls won’t I get hurt?” asked Blackie.
“No, for I’ll cut the tree so it will fall in among the bushes,” answered Toto, who, by this time, could make a tree fall in any direction he liked. “The bushes will be a sort of cushion, like the cushion of soft grass and chips in our stick house.”
Toto took his position at the foot of the tree, half way up in which was Blackie, the cat. Propping himself up on his tail, and clasping his forepaws around the trunk of the tree, which wasabout as large around as a rolling pin, Toto began to gnaw.
In a few minutes Toto had almost cut through the trunk.
“Oh, the tree is beginning to fall!” mewed Blackie.
“That’s what I want it to do,” answered Toto. “Don’t be afraid. Sit tight! You will not be hurt.”
The tree was swaying slightly, for the trunk had almost been cut through by the hard-working beaver boy. But he had cut it in the proper way, and it was falling toward a clump of thick bushes.
Blackie dug her claws into the soft bark and held on as tightly as she could. She was a little afraid, but she need not have been, for Toto knew what he was about. Very slowly and gently the tree swayed over. It fell among the bushes with hardly a crash, the boughs and the underbrush making a cushion. And now the trunk was so close to the ground that Blackie easily leaped down.
“Oh, thank you, very much, for helping me,” she mewed to Toto. “I thought I’d never get down, or see my kind lady mistress again. She is very sad these days, and if she lost me she would be more sad.”
“What is she sad about?” asked Toto.
“Because her house was broken into the otherday by some bad men, she thinks,” explained Blackie. “They took away a box of jewelry she had hidden under the bed. And in the box was a bracelet for a nice little girl. This little girl pets me and gives me milk when she comes to see her grandmother, with whom I now live. And sometimes I go to stay at the little girl’s house.”
“Why, how surprising!” exclaimed Toto. “I think I know the house you mean! I saw some ragged men go in there and come out with a box. A boy chased them and then the boy chased me.”
“What did the men do with the box?” asked Blackie. “Oh, how exciting! Maybe we can find it and make my mistress happy again.”
Toto slowly flapped his flat tail.
“The men went into the woods with the box,” he said. “That is all I know.”
“What woods?” asked Blackie.
“Well, the woods not very far from here,” answered the beaver.
“I wish I could find the box,” mewed Blackie. “I don’t care for jewelry myself, though I like a red ribbon tied on my neck, as the little girl sometimes ties it. But if I could find the box of jewelry it would make Millie and her grandmother happy.”
“I wish I could help you,” said Toto. “But I don’t know where the box is. But tell me aboutDon. Have you seen him lately? He wanted to catch the tramps.”
“No, I haven’t seen Don for some time,” explained Blackie. “He lives in another house with a boy, and sometimes this boy comes to see Millie’s grandmother. The old lady is his grandmother, too. Don and I are good friends.”
“He is a nice dog,” said Toto. “Well, as long as I have cut down this tree I may as well eat some of the bark. Will you have some?”
“No, thank you,” answered Blackie. “I don’t eat bark, I drink milk.”
“Bark is better,” said the beaver. “But I suppose it wouldn’t do for us all to eat the same thing. There wouldn’t be enough. Now, do you know your way home?”
“Oh, yes, I can find my way back across the fields to the house where I live,” said the cat. “I hope the tramps don’t come again. But call and see me sometime.”
“Thank you,” answered Toto. “I will. But I don’t go out in the fields much. It is safer for us beavers in the woods near the water.”
“I don’t like water,” said the black cat. “But thank you once more for getting me down out of the tree. I’ll tell Don, the next time I see him, how kind you are to me.”
“Remember me to him,” begged Toto.
“I will!” mewed Blackie. Then she walkedoff toward the field, and Toto began to eat some of the poplar bark.
You remember I told you I would put in this story something about how beavers dig canals to float the logs they cut down to the dam. And I guess this is a good place for that.
With their paws the beavers dig a ditch in the dirt, starting it from the place where the fallen tree lies, and heading it toward the waters of their pond. The beavers are fast diggers, too, almost as fast as they are gnawers, and many of them, working together, will dig a little canal in a few days. They take out the dirt and stones, placing them to one side. They carry the dirt and stones out of their way in their front paws.
Foot by foot the canal, which is yet only a dry ditch in the ground, is brought to the edge of the beaver pond. Then the little animals cut through the remaining wall of earth, so the water from the pond flows into the canal. The water goes all the way back to where the big tree trunk lies on the bank of the little canal. The beavers now, pushing all together, roll the heavy log into the canal which, after this, can easily be floated through the canal to the beaver pond, and used to make the dam bigger and stronger.
One day Mr. Beaver called out and said:
“Come on, Toto and Sniffy. You must help Cuppy and some of the others dig canals to-day.It will soon be winter again, and we want to get a lot of wood and bark stored away before cold weather comes.”
Beavers do not sleep all through the winter as bears, and some other animals, do. The beavers stay awake, move about, and have to eat. So they need plenty of food.
“Digging canals is fun!” laughed Toto. “I like it; don’t you, Sniffy?”
“Yes,” answered his brother, “I do. Here comes Dumple!” he added. “Let’s have some fun with him!”
So the three beaver boys tumbled about on the ground as they went along to where the canal was being dug. There they found Cuppy and many other animals at work, for several large trees had been cut down, and they must be floated in canals to the dam.
Each of the beaver boys was given a certain part of the work to do, and Toto was soon busy with the others. Foot by foot the canal was dug.
Now of course beaver boys don’t like to work all the while, any more than real boys do, and Toto was a real beaver boy. So, after he had dug a bit, he looked around, and, seeing no one near him, he said to himself:
“I’m going to see if I can’t find some willow bark to eat. Somehow to-day I seem to want a bit of willow bark.”
He climbed out of the canal, which had no water in as yet, and walked, or waddled, off through the woods. And soon Toto was going to have an adventure that was not a nice one.
He was walking along, thinking of what fun he would have that evening on the mud slide, when, all at once, he seemed to smell something very good. It was a piece of apple, and Toto had not eaten an apple for many days, as none grew in the woods.
“Oh, how good that is!” he exclaimed. “Some one must have dropped it here under the trees.”
Toto looked about and sniffed until he saw a small, red apple. It seemed to be on top of a little pile of leaves.
“Oh, how good!” cried Toto. He walked up to the apple, and then, all of a sudden, something happened! There was a clicking sound, and Toto felt a pain in his leg. Then he knew what it was.
“Oh, dear, I’m caught in a trap!” cried the beaver boy.