You see, it was to be the floor for the
splendid room he was planning to build. When it suited him, he began to
pile mud in the very middle.
Jerry puzzled and puzzled over this. Where was Paddy's room going to
be, if he piled up the mud that way? But he didn't like to ask
questions, so he kept right on helping. Paddy would dive down to the
bottom and then come up with double handfuls of mud, which he held
against his chest. He would scramble out onto the platform and waddle
over to the pile in the middle, where he would put the mud and pat it
down. Then back to the bottom for more mud.
And so the mud pile grew and grew, until it was quite two feet high.
"Now," said Paddy, "I'll build the walls, and I guess you can't help me
much with those. I'm going to begin them to-morrow night. Perhaps you
will like to see me do it, Cousin Jerry."
"I certainly will," replied Jerry, still puzzling over that pile of mud
in the middle.
XI
PETER RABBIT AND JERRY MUSKRAT ARE PUZZLED
Jerry Muskrat was more and more sure that his big cousin, Paddy the
Beaver, didn't know quite so much as he might about house-building.
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