08
The Little American Woodcutter
Clarence Hawkes, the author of this story, has been blind for many years, yet boys and girls in all parts of our country have seen nature through his unseeing eyes. While he was a boy, he learned to know and love the wild things of the out-of-doors. When he became blind, he began to write stories of the animals and birds he had known. Here he tells us of the beaver—the first American woodcutter.
The beaver is the first American woodcutter; he is also a famous dam builder. He cuts the wood both for food and building material for his dam. He builds the dam in order to flood the country around his house, and thus protect himself from his many enemies. The bear, the wildcat, the wolverine
, all love beaver meat; so he has to look to it that his house is well protected.
The beaver is a wonderful builder. Not only does he select with great care the place where he will build his dam, but he also builds it most skillfully. He usually selects a spot in a valley which has steep hills or banks on each side at the lower end. There the dam will be placed. Then, if luck is with him, there will be a large tree standing on either side of the stream.
These trees he fells toward each other, so that, if possible, their tops meet. When this is done, he has the backbone for his dam. Then he fills in with stakes and small logs and finally plasters up all the holes with mud and sod. When he has finished, it is as tight as any man-made dam.
But if trees are not available, he can do without them; he can cut logs, roll them into place, and make a dam wholly out of logs. The beaver seems to understand how powerful moving water is. At any rate, his dam usually curves upstream in the middle, and every engineer knows that a dam built in this way is the strongest. The beaver also provides a waste waterway which runs around one end of the dam. So, when the water is high, it flows around the end instead of washing away the top of the dam. He is very watchful of the dam, and if it begins to leak, he investigates at once.
When the dam is finished, the water spreads back, and there is a beautiful woodland lake. Many of the trees which were in the valley will now be standing in the water. This causes them to rot, so that they gradually decay and fall into the lake. It was in this way that the beaver did most of his land-clearing for the white man. He caused a small valley to become flooded by his dam; this rotted the timber, causing it to die; and thus the land was cleared. Then the spring freshets brought down rich mud and plastered it all over the bottom of the lake.
When the white man came, he trapped and killed the beaver and broke down his dam, causing the water to flow out. Behold, there was his farm all cleared free of timber and enriched by the mud which had been collecting for many years.
When the beaver has finished his dam and it is filled with water, there is usually an island in the woodland lake which he has formed; it is upon such an island that he builds his house. It is cone-shaped and made with a skeleton of sticks or rafters, but the chief building materials used by the beaver are sod and mud. These are plastered very skillfully on the framework. When the house is finished, the little builder lays in his supply of winter food. He goes upstream and cuts many small trees.
These trees he cuts into logs about three feet long and floats them down to the dam, where he piles them up. Then when the great freeze comes, most of this wood will be frozen under the ice where the beaver can get at it. Day after day he comes out and gets a stick, carries it into his house, and eats the bark. When it is stripped clean and white, he puts it back on the dam and gets another stick. Thus he and his family live under the ice all winter long. His mud house by this time has frozen until it is as hard as steel, and it would take a strong enemy to break into it, although the top still shows above the ice and snow.
Today the beaver has nearly disappeared from the United States. He is sometimes protected in the Adirondack region and in the State of Maine, but the timbermen soon get angry because of his destruction of their trees. Then the law is again repealed, and the beaver again disappears. Away to the Northwest, in Idaho and Montana, he is probably still found in his wild state enjoying his freedom. But he is almost sure finally to disappear, like all his wild kindred whose fur is valuable or whose hides or bones can be made useful to man. So the beaver will go the way of the bison and the American Indian. He was most useful before the coming of the white man in clearing his beautiful meadows and in making them ready for the farmer, but he has served his day and done his work; so he disappears just as many other beautiful and wonderful creatures have done.
I always think of the beaver with gratitude and affectionand sorrow when I remember that soon his sleek coat will wholly disappear, not only from the fur market, but from his own plump body where God first placed it. Good-bye, little American. We are grateful to you for all you did for us even before we came to your wilderness.
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
1. Give two reasons why the beaver cuts wood.
2. To see whether you know how a beaver builds a dam, answer these questions:
(a) Where does he build it?
(b) What does he use for materials?
(c) In what two ways does he keep it from being swept away by the water?
3. What two things did the beaver lakes do to help the settlers of our country?
4. To see what you know about a beaver's house, tell what word belongs where each letter is in the sentences below.
The beaver builds his house on an ___(a)___.
He uses ___(b)___ and ___(c)___ plastered on a framework of __(d)___.
His house is especially strong in ___(e)___.
5. Why do men hunt beavers?
6. Name three other animals hunted for the same reason.
7. Don't forget to use the Glossary. Did you know the meaning of available, decay, freshets, repealed, sleek?