The village near one end of Pleasant Valley where Farmer Green often
went to sell butter and eggs was not the only village to be seen from
Blue Mountain. There was another which Farmer Green seldom visited,
because it lay beyond the mountain and was a long distance from his
house. Though he owned the land where it stood, those that lived there
thought they had every right to stay there as long as they pleased,
without being disturbed.

It was in this village that Brownie Beaver and his neighbors lived. It
was a different sort of town, too, from the one where Farmer Green
went each week. Over beyond Blue Mountain all the houses were built in
a pond. And all their doors were under water. But nobody minded that
because--like Brownie Beaver--everybody that dwelt there was a fine
swimmer.

Years and years before Brownie's time his forefathers had come there,
and finding that there were many trees in the neighborhood with the
sort of bark they liked to eat--such as poplars, willows and box
elders--they had decided that it was a good place to live. There was a
small stream, too, which was really the beginning of Swift River. And
by damming it those old settlers made a pond in which they could build
their houses.

They had ideas of their own as to what a house should be like--and
very good ideas they were--though you, perhaps, might not care for
them at all. They wanted their houses to be surrounded by water,
because they thought they were safer when built in that manner. And
they always insisted that a door leading into a house should be far
beneath the surface of the water, for they believed that that made a
house safer too.