Work, work all the night
While the stars are shining bright;
Work, work all the day;
I have got no time to play.

This little rhyme Paddy the Beaver made up as he toiled at
building the dam which was to make the pond he so much desired
deep in the Green Forest. Of course it wasn't quite true, that
about working all night and all day. Nobody could do that, you
know, and keep it up. Everybody has to rest and sleep. Yes, and
everybody has to play a little to be at their best. So it wasn't
quite true that Paddy worked all day after working all night. But
it was true that Paddy had no time to play. He had too much to
do. He had had his playtime during the long summer, and now he
had to get ready for the long, cold winter.

Now, of all the little workers in the Green Forest, on the Green
Meadows, and in the Smiling Pool, none can compare with Paddy the
Beaver, not even his cousin, Jerry Muskrat. Happy Jack Squirrel
and Striped Chipmunk store up food for the long, cold months when
rough Brother North Wind and Jack Frost rule, and Jerry Muskrat
builds a fine house wherein to keep warm and comfortable, but all
this is as nothing to the work of Paddy the Beaver.

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.