Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Beavers -- Juvenile fiction; Children's literature
For a few moments Brownie waited to hear the rest. But a few moments
was more than he could endure.
"Why didn't Jimmy cut off his tail?" Brownie asked eagerly.
"There!" said Mr. Crow. "You've done just as I told you not to. So I
shall not tell you the rest until next Saturday.... You see, you have
a few things to learn about taking a newspaper." And 'he would give
Brownie no more news that day. To be sure, he was willing to talk--but
only about things that had happened where Brownie Beaver lived.
VIII
MR. CROW IS UPSET
Brownie Beaver couldn't help feeling that Mr. Crow had not treated him
very well, because Mr. Crow hadn't told him all the news about Frisky
Squirrel's tail. He thought that maybe there were things about a
newspaper that even Mr. Crow didn't know.
Another week had passed. Brownie knew that it had, because since Mr.
Crow's last call he had cut a notch in a stick each day. And there
were now seven of them.
Late Saturday afternoon Mr. Crow came back again. He lighted on top of
Brownie's house and called "Paper!" down the chimney, just as he had a
week before.
Brownie Beaver came swimming up once more.
"Look here!" he said to Mr. Crow. "I don't believe yon know much about
being a newspaper, do you?"
That surprised Mr. Crow.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"A newspaper--" said Brownie Beaver--"a newspaper is always left on, a
person's doorstep. I've talked with a good many people and not one of
them ever heard of a paper being left on the roof."
Mr. Crow's face seemed to grow blacker than ever, he was so angry.
"How can anybody leave a newspaper on your doorstep, when the step's
under water?" he growled.
Brownie Beaver did not answer that question, for he had something else
to say to Mr. Crow.
"I've talked with a good many people," he said once more, "and not one
of them ever heard of such rudeness as _shouting down a person's
chimney_. If there was anybody asleep in the house, it would
certainly wake him; and if a person had a fire in his house, shouting
down the chimney might put it out."
Mr. Crow looked rather foolish.
"I'll try to think of some way of leaving your newspaper that will
suit us both," he said. Then he _hemmed_ and began to tell Brownie
the week's news.
"On Sunday," said Mr. Crow, "there was a freshet."
"I knew that before you did," said Brownie Beaver.
Mr. Crow looked disappointed.
"How?" he asked.
"Why, I live further up the river than you," said Brownie Beaver. "And
since freshets always come _down_ a river, this one didn't reach you
till after it had passed me."
Something made Mr. Crow peevish.
"I don't believe you'd care to hear any more of my news," he said.
"You appear to know it already. Perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell
me the sort of news you prefer to hear."
"Certainly!" Brownie Beaver replied. "Now, there's the weather! I've
talked with a good many people and they all say that a good newspaper
ought to tell the weather for the next day."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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