CHAPTER II Paddy Plans a Pond.

Paddy the Beaver was busy cutting down trees for the dam he had
planned to build. Up in the woods of the North from which he had
come to the Green Forest, he had learned all about tree-cutting
and dam-building and canal-digging and house-building. Paddy's
father and mother had been very wise in the Beaver world, and
Paddy had been quick to learn. So now he knew just what to do and
the best way of doing it. You know, a great many people waste
time and labor doing things the wrong way, so that they have to
be done over again. They forget to be sure they are right, and so
they go ahead until they find they are wrong, and all their work
goes for nothing.

But Paddy the Beaver isn't this kind. Paddy would never have
leaped into the spring with the steep sides without looking, as
Grandfather Frog did. So now he carefully picked out the trees to
cut. He could not afford to waste time cutting down a tree that
wasn't going to be just what he wanted when it was down. When he
was sure that the tree was right, he looked up at the top to find
out whether, when he had cut it, it would fall clear of other
trees. He had learned to do that when he was quite young and
heedless. He remembered just how he had felt when, after working
hard, oh, so hard, to cut a big tree, he had warned all his
friends to get out of the way so that they would not be hurt when
it fell, and then it hadn't fallen at all because the top had
caught in another tree. He was so mortified that he didn't get