have
suspected that he was bent on pleasure. Or at least, nobody would have
supposed that Mr. Turtle had found what he was looking for. Certainly if
he was hunting for fun, he never looked as if he had discovered any.
For no smile showed itself upon his face. Instead, he met every one with
a frown. And if a body gave him a cheery "Good morning," just as likely
as not Timothy would answer with a grunt, and pass on.

Naturally, when Timothy Turtle arrived anywhere and told people that he
expected to spend a few days among them they did not feel any great joy
at the news. On the contrary, they were quite likely to say to one
another, "I hope he won't stop long," or "He looks more grumpy than
ever." And some would even remark that they wished Timothy Turtle would
go home and stay there.

So no one of the Beaver colony was glad when Timothy appeared in their
pond one day and explained that he intended to be in the neighborhood at
least a week. In the first place, the Beavers, as a whole, were a busy,
cheerful family, who did not like disagreeable folk for company. And in
the second place, they were spry workers; and they had little use for
anybody as slow as Timothy Turtle, who never did any work at all.

It is no wonder, then, that as soon as the news of Timothy's coming
spread up and down and across the pond, the busy Beavers stopped their
work and said things about the crusty outsider who had forced himself
upon them. And almost everybody went to call upon Grandaddy Beaver and
asked him what he thought ought to be done.

Now, Grandaddy was a good old soul. And he told the hot-headed younger
members of the colony to keep cool, which seems a simple thing for them
to have done, swimming about as they were in the icy water, which
flowed down from springs on the side of Blue Mountain.

"Timothy Turtle has been here before," Grandaddy Beaver announced. "I
can remember my great-grandfather's telling me about his passing two
whole weeks in our pond. And though everybody wished he would leave, he
never harmed anybody, because people kept out of his way."

"Well, he ought to work while he's here," said a brisk gentleman,
tugging at his moustache.

"Timothy Turtle will never lift his hand to do a single stroke of work,"
said old Grandaddy Beaver. "He has already spent a long life without
working. And he'll be lazy if he lives to be a hundred years old--or
even a hundred and fifty."

Now, a young chap called Brownie Beaver