They wanted to give him a gold-headed cane, too.
But they were unable to find one anywhere.
When Brownie Beaver heard of that he said it was just
as well, because he seldom walked far on land and
there wasn’t much use in a person’s carrying
a cane when he swam, anyhow. Although it was sometimes
done, he had always considered it a silly practice—and
one that he would not care to follow.
A HAPPY THOUGHT
Brownie Beaver liked to know what was going on in
the world. But living far from Pleasant Valley
as he did, he seldom heard any news before it was
quite old.
“I wish—” he said to Mr. Crow
one day, when that old gentleman was making him a
visit—“I wish someone would start
a newspaper in this neighborhood.”
Mr. Crow told Brownie that he would be glad to bring
him an old newspaper whenever he happened to find
one. “Thank you!” Brownie Beaver
said. “You’re very kind. But
an old newspaper would be of no use to me.”
“Why not?” Mr. Crow inquired. “They
make very good beds, I’ve been told. And
I suppose that is what you want one for.”
“Not at all!” Brownie replied. “I’d
like to know what’s happening over in Pleasant
Valley. It takes so long for news to reach us
here in our pond that it’s often hardly worth
listening to when we hear it—it’s
so old. Now, what I’d really prefer is a
newspaper that would tell me everything that’s
going to happen a week later.”
Mr. Crow said he never heard of a newspaper like that.
“Well, somebody ought to start one,” Brownie
Beaver answered.
Mr. Crow thought deeply for some minutes without saying
a word. And at last He cried suddenly:
“I have an idea!”
“Have you?” Brownie Beaver exclaimed.
“What is it, Mr. Crow?”
“I’ll be your newspaper!” Mr. Crow
told him.
At that Brownie Beaver looked somewhat doubtful.
“That’s very kind of you,” he said.
“But I’m afraid it wouldn’t do me
much good. You’re so black that the ink
wouldn’t show on you at all—–
unless,” he added, “they use white
ink to print on you.”
“You don’t understand,” old Mr.
Crow said. “What I mean is this: I’ll
fly over here once a week and tell you everything that’s
happened. Of course,” he continued, “I
can’t very well tell you everything that is
going to take place the following week. But I’ll
do my best.”
Brownie Beaver was delighted. And when Mr. Crow
asked him what day he wanted his newspaper Brownie
said that Saturday afternoon would be a good time.
“That’s the last day of the week,”
Brownie Beaver remarked, “so you ought to have
plenty of news for me. You know, if you came the
first day of the week there would be very little to
tell.”
“That’s so!” said Mr. Crow.
“Well say ‘Saturday,’ then.
And you shall have your newspaper without fail—unless,”
he explained—“unless there should
be a bad storm, or unless I should be ill. And,
of course, if Farmer Green should want me to help
him in his cornfield, I wouldn’t be able to
come. There might be other things, too, to keep
me at home, which I can’t think of just now,”
said Mr. Crow.
