Binney the Beaver, and Other Stories

BINNEY was a young beaver, who lived with several brothers and sisters, and a great many aunts, uncles, and cousins, in a beautiful pond by a stream which empties into the Missouri a long way off to the north-west.

This was not a natural pond. Some years before, two beavers, whose house had been destroyed by the Indians, set out on a journey to found a new town. They travelled along at their leisure, living upon the tender bark of the low and cotton-wood shoots, which they found in great abundance, and looking for a home. They found no place to suit them for a great many days. One stream was too swift, another too slow; another was subject to great freshets, as was plainly shown by the heaps of driftwood which lay piled on the banks, and the great logs in the bed of the stream.

At last, however, after travelling till they were tired and almost discouraged, they came one morning to the banks of a large and clear brook. Willows and cotton-wood grew all around it, there were no signs of men anywhere about, and just in the shadiest, pleasantest place there was a long reach of still water.

"This will suit very nicely," said Mr. Beaver. "I have not seen such a pleasant place since we left home."

"No place can ever be to me like that old home," said Mrs. Beaver, sighing. "I do not feel any courage at all about beginning to build in this new, strange stream."