terrible fuss over in the aspen trees on the edge of the pond
Paddy had made in the Green Forest. Paddy couldn't see because he
was inside his house, and it has no window, but he could hear. He
wrinkled up his brows thoughtfully.

"Seems to me that Sammy is very much excited this morning," said
he, a way he has because he is so much alone. "When he screams
like that, Sammy is usually trying to do two things at once--make
trouble for somebody and keep somebody else out of trouble; and
when you come to think of it, that's rather a funny way of doing.
It shows that he isn't all bad, and at the same time he is a long
way from being all good. Now, I should say from the sounds that
Sammy has discovered Reddy Fox trying to steal up on someone over
where my aspen trees are growing. Reddy is afraid of me, but I
suspect that he knows that Peter Rabbit has been hanging around
here a lot lately, watching me work, and he thinks perhaps he can
watch Peter. I shall have to whisper in one of Peter's long ears
and tell him to watch out."

After a while he heard Sammy Jay's voice growing fainter and
fainter in the Green Forest. Finally he couldn't hear it at all.
"Whoever was here has gone away, and Sammy has followed just to
torment them," thought Paddy. He was very busy making a bed. He
is very particular about his bed, is Paddy the Beaver. He makes
it of fine splinters of wood which he splits off with those
wonderful great cutting teeth of his. This makes the driest kind
of a bed. It requires a great deal of patience and work, but
patience is one of the first things a little Beaver learns, and
honest work well done is one of the greatest pleasures in the
world, as Paddy long ago found out for himself. So he kept at