As I said before, Paddy had had a long playtime through the
summer. He had wandered up and down the Laughing Brook. He had
followed it way up to the place where it started. And all the
time he had been studying and studying to make sure that he
wanted to stay in the Green Forest. In the first place, he had to
be sure that there was plenty of the kind of food that he likes.
Then he had to be equally sure that he could make a pond near
where this particular food grew. Last of all, he had to satisfy
himself that if he did make a pond and build a home, he would be
reasonably safe in it. And all these things he had done in his
playtime. Now he was ready to go to work, and when Paddy begins
work, he sticks to it until it is finished. He says that is the
only way to succeed, and you know and I know that he is right.
Now Paddy the Beaver can see at night just as Reddy Fox and Peter
Rabbit and Bobby Coon can, and he likes the night best, because
he feels safest then. But he can see in the daytime too, and when
he feels that he is perfectly safe and no one is watching, he
works then too. Of course, the first thing to do was to build a
dam across the Laughing Brook to make the pond he so much needed.
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.
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