"I'll admit
that you are smart, Chatterer, but often it is in a wrong way.
Paddy is smart in the very best way. He is a lumberman, builder
and engineer. A lot of my little people are workers, but they are
destructive workers. The busier they are, the more they destroy.
Paddy the Beaver is a constructive worker. That means that he is a
builder instead of a destroyer."
"How about all those trees he cuts down? If that isn't destroying,
I don't know what is!" said Chatterer, and with each word jerked
his tail as if somehow his tongue and tail were connected.
"So it is," replied Old Mother Nature good-naturedly. "But just
think of the number of trees you destroy."
"I never have destroyed a tree in my life!" declared
Chatterer indignantly.
"Yes, you have," retorted Old Mother Nature.
"I never have!" contradicted Chatterer, quite forgetting to whom
he was speaking.
But Old Mother Nature overlooked this. "I don't suppose you ever
ate a chestnut or a fat hickory nut or a sweet beechnut," said
she softly.
"Of course," retorted Chatterer sharply. "I've eaten ever and
ever and ever so many of them. What of it?"
In the heart of each one was a little tree, explained Old Mother
Nature. "But for you very many of those little trees would have
sprung up and some day would have made big trees. So you see for
every tree Paddy has destroyed you probably have destroyed a
hundred.
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