he water would grow
muddier and muddier.

At last Jerry could stand it no longer. He just had to see what was
going on. He slipped into the water and swam over to where the water was
muddiest. Just as he got there up came Paddy.

"Hello, Cousin Jerry!" said he. "I was just going to invite you over to
see what you think of my house inside. Just follow me."

Paddy dived, and Jerry dived after him. He followed Paddy in at one of
the three doorways under water and up a smooth hall right into the
biggest, nicest bedroom Jerry had ever seen in all his life. He just
gasped in sheer surprise. He couldn't do anything else. He couldn't find
his tongue to say a word. Here he was in this splendid great room up
above the water, and he had been so sure that there wasn't any room at
all! He just didn't know what to make of it.

Paddy's eyes twinkled. "Well," said he, "what do you think of it?"

"I--I--think it is splendid, just perfectly splendid! But I don't
understand it at all, Cousin Paddy. I--I--Where is that great pile of
mud I helped you build in the middle?" Jerry looked as foolish as he
felt when he asked this.

"Why, I've dug it all away. That's what made the water so muddy,"
replied Paddy.

"But what did you build it for in the first place?" Jerry persisted.

"Because I had to have something to rest my sticks against while I was
building my walls, of course," replied Paddy. "When I got the tops
fastened together for a roof, they didn't need a support any longer, and
then I dug it away to make this room. I couldn't have built such a big
room any other way. I see you don't know very much about house-building,
Cousin Jerry."

"I--I'm afraid I don't," confessed Jerry sadly.

XIII

THE QUEER STOREHOUSE

Everybody knew that Paddy the Beaver was laying up a supply of food for
the winter, and everybody thought it was queer food. That is, everybody
but Prickly Porky the Porcupine thought so. Prickly Porky likes the same
kind of food, but he never lays up a supply. He just goes out and gets
it when he wants it, winter or summer. What kind of food was it? Why,
bark, to be sure. Yes, Sir, it was just bark--the bark of certain kinds
of trees.

Now Prickly Porky can climb the trees and eat the bark right there, but
Paddy the Beaver cannot climb, and if he should just eat the bark that
he can reach from the ground it would take such a lot of trees to keep
him filled up that he would soon spoil the Green Forest. Yo