of his house and began to mend it.

"You young folks can poke fun at me if you want to," said Grandaddy
Beaver, "but I'm a-going right ahead and make my house as strong as I
can. For when the freshet gets here I don't want my home washed away."

All day long people would stop to watch the old fellow at work upon
his roof. And everybody thought it was a great joke--until the second
day came and everybody noticed that it was raining just as hard as
ever.

But no one except Grandaddy Beaver had ever heard of a freshet at that
time of year. So even then nobody else went to work on his house,
though some people _did_ stop smiling. A freshet, you know, is a
serious thing.

As the second day passed, the rain seemed to fall harder. And still
Grandaddy Beaver kept putting new sticks on the roof of his house and
plastering mud over them. And at last Brownie Beaver began to think
that perhaps the old gentleman was right, after all, and that maybe
everybody else was wrong.

So Brownie went home and set to work. And all his neighbors at once
began to smile at him.

But Brownie Beaver didn't mind that.

"My roof needed mending, anyhow," he said. "And if we _should_
have a freshet. I'll be ready for it. And if we don't have one,
there'll be no harm done."