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He chose a low open place deep in the Green Forest, around the edge of which grew many young aspen-trees, the bark of which is his favorite food. Through the middle of this open place flowed the Laughing Brook. At the lower edge was just the place for a dam.
After a while he went over to his storehouse, which, you know, was nothing but a great pile of aspen-logs and branches in his pond close by his house. He studied it very carefully. Then he swam back and climbed up on the bank of his canal. "Mr. Jay," said he, "I think our work is about finished." "What!" cried Sammy, "Aren't you going to cut the rest of those aspen-trees?" "No," replied Paddy.
Not one bird could be heard; all were in hiding and silent, except that at times there rang out the metallic, bell-like sound of the jeering tomtit. Before halting in this birch copse I had been through a wood of tall aspen-trees with my dog.
In moments like these, I ceased to regret my separation from my native land; and, filled with the love of Nature, my heart forgot for the time the love of home. The very spirit of peace seemed to brood over the waters, which were broken into a thousand ripples of light by every breeze that stirred the rice blossoms, or whispered through the shivering aspen-trees.
Presently he reached a place where he could see the aspen-trees, and there sure enough was Paddy, sitting up on his hind legs and hard at work cutting another tree. Old Man Coyote lay down for a few minutes to watch. Then he wriggled a little nearer. Slowly and carefully he drew his legs under him and made ready for a rush. Paddy the Beaver was his at last!
"That evening we walked out in the cool under the aspen-trees. What should I remember in all my life if not that night the young bullocks snuffling in the gateways the campion flowers all lighted up along the hedges the moon with a halo-bats, too, in and out among the stems, and the shadows of the cottages as black and soft as that sea down there.
When he came up again, Sammy was over in the little grove of aspen-trees where Paddy was at work. Then Jerry discovered something. What was it? Why a little water-path led right up to the aspen-trees, and there, at the end of the little water-path, was Paddy the Beaver hard at work. He was digging and piling the earth on one side very neatly. In fact, he was making the water-path longer.
And all the time his eyes and nose and ears were busy looking, smelling, and listening for any sign of danger. Everything was still. Sure that he was quite safe, Paddy swam across to the place where the aspen-trees grew, and waddled out on the shore. Paddy looked this way and looked that way. He looked up in the tree tops, and he looked off up the hill, but most of all he looked at the ground.
When Sammy overheard Paddy the Beaver say that to Jerry Muskrat, it made him swell up all over with pure pride. You see, Sammy is so used to hearing bad things about himself that to hear something nice like that pleased him immensely. He straightway forgot all the mean things he had said to Paddy when he first saw him how he had called him a thief because he had cut the aspen-trees he needed.
Pale white the aspen-trees shone, and above was the fluttering, quivering canopy of gold tinged with green, and below clustered the asters, thick as stars in the sky, waving, nodding, swaying gracefully to each little autumn breeze, lilac-hued and lavender and pale violet, and all the shades of exquisite purple. Wade lingered, his senses predominating.
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