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THE STORY OF A BEAVER
William Davenport Hulbert
A broad, flat tail came down on the water with a whack that
sent the echoes flying back and forth across the pond, and its
owner ducked his head, arched his back, and dived to the bottom.
It was a very curious tail, for besides being so oddly paddle-shaped,
it was covered with what looked like scales, but were really sections
of hard, horny, blackish-gray skin. Except its owner’s relations,
there was no one else in all the world who had one like it. But
the strangest thing about it was the many different ways in which
he used it. Just now it was his rudder, steering him as he swam
imder water — and a very good rudder, too.
In a moment his little brown head reappeared, and he and his
brothers and sisters went chasing each other round and round
the pond, ducking and diving and splashing, raising such a com-
motion that they sent the ripples washing all along the grassy
shores, and having the jolliest kind of a time. It isn’t the usual
thing for young beavers to be out in broad daylight, but all this
happened in the good old days before the railways came, when
there were fewer men in northern Michigan than there are now.
When the youngsters wanted a change they climbed up onto
a log, and nudged and hunched each other, poking their noses
into one another’s fat little sides, and each trying to shove his
brother or sister back into the water. By and by they scrambled
out on the bank, and then, when their fur had dripped a little,
they set to work to comb it.
Up they sat on their hind legs and tails — the tail was a stool
now, you see — and scratched their heads and shoulders with the
long, brown claws of their small, black, hairy hands. Then the
hind feet came up one at a time and combed and stroked their
sides till the moisture was gone and the fur was soft and smooth
and glossy as velvet.
After that they had to have another romp. They were not
half as graceful on land as they had been in the water. In fact
they were not graceful at all, and the way they stood around on
their hind legs, and shuffled, and pranced, and wheeled like baby
hippopotami, and slapped the ground with their tails, was one
of the funniest sights in the heart of the woods. And the funniest
and liveliest of them all was the one who owned that tail. He
was the one whom I shall call the Beaver — with a big B.
But even young beavers will sometimes grow tired of play,
and at last they all lay down on the grass in the warm, quiet
sunshine of the autumn afternoon. The wind had gone to sleep,
the pond glittered like steel in its bed of grassy beaver-meadow,
the friendly wood stood guard all around, and it was a very good
time for five furry little babies to take a nap.
The city in which the Beaver was born was a very old one,
and may have been the oldest in North America. Nobody knows
when the beavers first began to build the dam that stretched
across the stream and backed the water up until it spread out
across the valley in a broad, quiet pond. It was probably
centuries ago, and for all we can tell it may have been thousands
of years back in the past.
Family after family of beavers had worked on that dam,
building it a little higher and a Uttle higher, a Uttle longer and a
little longer, year after year; and raising the round domes of their
houses as the pond rose around them. Their city streets, like
those of Venice, were mostly of water, and they themselves were
navigators from their earliest youth, and took to the water as
naturally as ducks or Englishmen. They were lumbermen, too,
and when the timber was all out from along the shores of the pond,
they dug canals across the low, level, marshy ground, back to
the higher land where the birch and the poplar still grow, and
floated the branches and the smaller logs down the water-ways
to the pond. In this way they stored up a supply of food for
winter, for the beaver’s favorite meal is made of tender branches
and the bark of trees.
And there were land roads, as well as canals, for here and
there narrow trails crossed the swamp, showing where one family
after another of busy workers had passed back and forth between
the felled trees and the water’s edge. Streets, canals, public
works, dwellings, lumbering, rich stores laid up for the winter —
what more do you want to make a city, even if the houses are few
in number, and the population somewhat smaller than that of
London or New York?
The first year of our Beaver’s life was an easy one, especially
the winter, when there was little for anyone to do except to eat, to
sleep, and now and then to fish for the roots of the yellow water-
lily in the soft mud at the bottom of the pond. During that
season not only was he increasing in size and weight, but he was
storing up strength for the work that lay before him. It would
take much muscle to force those long, yellow teeth of his through
the hard, tough flesh of the maple or the birch or the poplar.
It would take vigor and push to roll the heavy billets of wood over
the grass-tufts to the edge of the water. So it was well for the
youngster that for a time he had nothing to do but grow.
But spring came at last. Though the Beaver had many and
many a fine romp with his brothers and sisters, still he began to
learn to be a little useful in the world, and to do the sort of things
that his father and mother did.
Now, on a dark autumn night, behold the young Beaver toiling
with might and main. His parents have felled a tree, and it is
his business to help them cut up the best portions and carry them
home. He gnaws off a small branch, seizes the butt end between
his teeth, swings it over his shoulder, and makes for the water,
keeping his head twisted around to the right or left so that the end
of the branch may trail on the ground behind him. Sometimes
he even rises on his hind legs, and walks almost upright, with his
broad, strong tail for a prop to keep him from tipping over back-
ward if his load happens to catch on something. Arrived at the
canal or at the edge of the pond, he jumps in and swims for town,
still carrying the branch over his shoulder, and finally leaves it
on the growing pile in front of his father’s lodge. Or perhaps the
stick is too large and too heavy to be carried in such a way. In
that case it must be cut into short billets and rolled to the water’s
edge. This means he must push with all his might, and there are
so many, many grass-tufts and little hillocks in the way! Some-
times the billet rolls down into a hollow, and then it is very hard
to get it out again. He works like a beaver y and pushes and shoves
and toils with tremendous energy, but I am afraid that more than
one choice stick never reaches the water.
These were his first tasks. Later on he learned to fell trees
himself. Standing up on his hind legs and tail, with his hands
braced against the trunk, he would hold his head sidewise, open
his mouth wide, set his teeth against the bark, and bring his jaws
together with a savage nip, that left a deep gash in the side of the
tree. A second nip deepened the gash, and gave it more of a
downward slant, and two or three more carried it still farther into
the tough wood. Then he would choose a new spot a little farther
down, and start a second gash, which was made to slant up towards
the first. And when he thought they were both deep enough he
would set his jaw firmly in the wood between them, and pull and
jerk and twist at it until he had wrenched out a chip — a chip
perhaps two inches long, and from an eighth to a quarter of an
inch thick. He would make bigger ones when he grew to be bigger
himself, but you musn’t expect too much at first.
Chip after chip was torn out in this way, and gradually he
would work completely around the tree. Then the groove was
made deeper, and after awhile it would have to be broadened so
that he could get his head farther into it. He seemed to think it
was of immense importance to get the job done as quickly as
possible, for he worked away with tremendous energy as if fell-
ing that tree was the only thing in the world that was worth doing.
Once in a while he would pause for a moment to feel of it with
his hands, and to glance up at the top to see whether it was getting
ready to fall. Several times he stopped long enough to take a re-
freshing dip in the pond; but he always hurried back, and pitched
in again harder than ever. In fact, he sometimes went at it so
impetuously that he slipped and rolled over on his back.
Little by little he dug away the tree*s flesh until there was
nothing left but its heart. At last it began to sway and crash.
The Beaver jumped aside to get out of the way. Hundreds and
hundreds of small, tender branches, and delicious little twigs and
buds came crashing down where he could cut them off and eat
them or carry them away at his leisure.
And so all the beavers in the city labored, and their labor
brought its rich reward; everybody was busy and contented, and
life was decidedly worth living.
