how much bigger Paddy is.

Each night Jerry and Paddy worked, resting during the daytime.
Occasionally Bobby Coon or Reddy Fox or Unc' Billy Possum or Jimmy Skunk
would come to the edge of the pond to see what was going on. Peter
Rabbit came every night. But they couldn't see much because, you know,
Paddy and Jerry were working under water.

But at last Peter was rewarded. There, just above the water, was a
splendid platform of mud and grass and sticks. A great many sticks were
carefully laid as soon as the platform was above the water, for Paddy
was very particular about this. 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.
Jerry would have liked to offer some suggestions, but he didn't quite
dare. You see, he was very anxious not to displease his big cousin. But
he felt that he simply had got to speak his mind to some one, so he swam
across to where he had seen Peter Rabbit almost every night since Paddy
began to build. Sure enough, Peter was there, sitting up very straight
and staring with big round eyes at the platform of mud and sticks out in
the water where Paddy the Beaver was at work.

[Illustration: "Why it's a house you stupid. It's Paddy's new house,"
replied Jerry. _Page 57_.]

"Well, Peter, what do you think of it?" asked Jerry.

"What is it?" asked Peter innocently. "Is it another dam?"

Jerry threw back his head and laughed and la