Then he went back to the wishing-stone and looked down at it thoughtfully. “And I actually wished I could be a fox!” he exclaimed. “My, but I’m glad I’m not! I guess Reddy has trouble enough without me making him any more. He may kill a lot of innocent little creatures, but he has to live, and it’s no more than men do.” (He was thinking of the chicken dinner he would have that day.) “I’m going straight over to the Old Pasture and take up that trap I set yesterday. I guess a boy’s troubles don’t amount to much after all. I’m more glad than ever that I’m a boy, and--and--well, if Reddy Fox is smart enough to get one of my chickens now and then, he’s welcome. It must be awful to be hungry all the time.” CHAPTER TWO TOMMY BECOMES A FURRY ENGINEER Paddy the Beaver lives in the Great Woods far from the dwelling-place of man. Often and often had Tommy wished that Paddy lived in the Green Forest near his home that he might make his acquaintance; for he had read many wonderful things about Paddy, and they were hard to believe. “If I could see ’em for myself, just _see_ ’em with my own eyes I could believe; but so many things are written that are not true that a feller doesn’t know what to believe and what not to. A feller ought to _see_ things to _know_ that they are so,” said Tommy, as he strolled down towards the big gray stone that overlooked the Green Meadows. “’Course it’s easy enough to believe that beavers build houses. Muskrats do that. I know all about muskrats, and I s’pose a beaver’s house is about the same thing as a muskrat’s, only bigger and better; but how any animal can cut down a big tree, or build a dam, or dig a regular canal is more than I can understand without seeing for myself. I wish----” Tommy didn’t finish his wish. I suspect he was going to wish that he could go into the Great Woods and hunt for Paddy the Beaver. But he didn’t finish his wish, because just then a new thought popped into his head. You know how it is with thoughts. They just pop out from nowhere in the queerest way. It was so now with Tommy. He suddenly thought of the wishing-stone, the great gray stone just ahead of him, and he wondered, if he should sit down on it, if he could wish himself into a beaver. Always before, when he had wished himself into an animal or a bird, it was one of those with which he was familiar and had seen. This case was different. There were no beavers anywhere near where Tommy lived, and so he was a little doubtful. If he could wish himself into a beaver, why, he could wish himself into anything--a lion, or an elephant, or anything else--and learn about _all_ the animals, no matter where they lived!