He found it rather difficult, gnawing chips out of
the tree and smiling at the same time. But he
was an earnest youngster and he did the best he could.
Brownie Beaver kept wishing the flashlight would go
off, because—what with smiling and gnawing—his
face began to ache. But no glare of light broke
through the darkness.
It was not long before Brownie had gnawed away so
many chips that the tree began to nod its head further
and further toward the ground. And Brownie wished
that the flash-light would hurry and go off before
the tree fell.
But there was not even the faintest flicker of light.
It was most annoying. And Brownie was so disappointed
that for once he forgot to be careful when he was
cutting down a tree. He kept his eyes on the
bushes all the time, instead of on the tree—as
he should have done. And all the time the tree
leaned more and more.
At last there was a snap! Brownie Beaver should
have known what that meant. But he was so eager
to have his picture taken that he mistook the snap
for the click that he had first heard almost
a week before.
He thought it must be the click of a camera hidden
in the bushes. And he stood very still and looked
extremely pleasant. Now, Brownie Beaver should
have known better. But like most people, for once
he made a mistake. What he really heard was the
tree snapping. And before he could jump out of
the way the tree came crashing down upon him and pinned
him fast to the ground. He saw a flash of light,
to be sure, and a good many stars. But all that
only came from the knock on his head which the tree
gave him.
BROWNIE ESCAPES
When the tree crashed down upon Brownie Beaver and
held him fast, it was some time before he came to
his senses. Then he did not know, at first, where
he was nor what had happened to him. But at last
he remembered that he had been cutting down a tree
not far from the pond and he saw that it must have
fallen upon him.
Of course, the first thing that occurred to him was
to call for help. But just as he opened his mouth
to shout, another thought came into his head. Perhaps
some man might hear him—or a bear! And
Brownie Beaver closed his mouth as quickly as he had
opened it.
Then he tried to squirm from under the tree-trunk.
But he couldn’t move himself at all. Next
he tried to push the tree away from him. But
he couldn’t move the tree either.
For a long while Brownie Beaver struggled, first at
one impossible thing, and then at the other.
And all the time the tree seemed to grow heavier and
heavier.
Finally, Brownie stopped trying to get free and began
to feel hungry.
You can see that he must have been worried, because
there was the tree, with plenty of bark on it which
he could eat. But he never noticed it for a long
time.
