move himself at all. Next he tried to push the tree away from him. But
he couldn't move the tree either.

For a long while Brownie Beaver struggled, first at one impossible
thing, and then at the other. And all the time the tree seemed to grow
heavier and heavier.

Finally, Brownie stopped trying to get free and began to feel hungry.

You can see that he must have been worried, because there was the
tree, with plenty of bark on it which he could eat. But he never
noticed it for a long time.

At last, however, he happened to remember that in the beginning he had
started to cut down that very tree so he could reach the bark and eat
it.

Then Brownie Beaver had a good meal. And just as he finished eating,
another thought came into his head. _Why shouldn't he gnaw right
through the tree?_

Since there seemed to be no answer to that question, he began to gnaw
big chips out of the wood. And in a surprisingly short time he had cut
the tree apart just where it pressed upon him.

Then, of course, all he had to do was to get up and walk away.

When he reached the village he found that all his neighbors had been
looking everywhere for him.