Love and Loss in a Beaver Pond
Variations on a Theme by James Thurber
So, this happened during the spring following the big fall rain we had a couple of years ago. I was walking along an irrigation ditch in Northern Colorado not far from my home, and coming to a bend in the ditch, just opposite a huge grove of very old cottonwood trees, I heard the sound of trickling water which did not come from the canal. The sound was more like water spilling over something, in fact, it sounded like water seeping over and through a beaver dam, and when I spotted the dam, I discovered a large pond deepening behind it, old cottonwoods up to their ankles in water. So I says, “Huh.”
I made my way over to the beaver pond without getting too wet, and lay on the hill above it figuring to do a little beaver watching. It was afternoon and nary a beaver caused a ripple in the pond nor felled any trees that I heard fall. I returned to the pond the following evening. No beaver. A few days later, while taking a pre-dawn stroll, I crossed the bridge on the main road, under which the irrigation ditch runs, when I heard a loud “SMACK”. So I says, “Huh,” and made my way over to the pond. Not one, not two, but three little beavers busied themselves around the pool.
I returned to the pond around dawn or sunset every other day or so all through the summer months and did some serious amateur beaver watching because it was the most peaceful thing I could think of to do. The three little beavers must have gotten somewhat used to my presence because by June they seemed oblivious of me even when I tromped rather loudly over to my familiar place of observation. What I gleaned from my patient study was that the group of three consisted of two little boy beavers and one little girl beaver. Now one of the little boy beavers seemed like your average eager beaver: work, work, work all the live long day, fortifying the dam, felling trees, building a den in the middle of the pond, in short, doing his little beaver best to make the world in which he found himself a better place. The other little boy beaver, however, was more of what you might call a slacker beaver, a lazy beaver, a beaver up to no good. He swam and frolicked, sliding down the mud slide, sprawling on the sun-warmed rocks of early morning and late evening, even playing some beaver version of the children’s game we call “Marco”, “Polo”. Now the little girl beaver, in the early months of summer seemed to get along with the lazy beaver swimmingly. They frolicked, and slid, dove only to surface somewhere else entirely, and she too seemed to enjoy sun bathing in the slanting rays either side of day. Through June this was pretty much the norm: Lazy and Sweet Bea frolicked and Eager work, work, worked.
Round about the middle of July there seemed to be a slight change in the social dynamics of the pond. The little girl beaver withdrew and became more distant from the other two, shy and watchful. The lazy beaver continued to slack. The industrious beaver continued to work.
During the last two weeks of August, I was not able to attend my post by the pond, but I happened to ask the neighbor boy who watches after our chickens when we are away if he wouldn’t mind checking in with the beavers now and then. When I returned and caught up with him to pay him for his animal husbandry services, I asked him about the beavers, and he replied, “Wull, I went there, but I didn’t see no beaver.” “There is a pond there though, right?” “Oh, yeah, right there by the bend in the ditch, but I didn’t see hide nor hair of any beaver.” So I says, “Huh.”
The next morning I hurried to the pond, fearing the beavers had left, but just like always, there they were: three little beavers closing up shop after a busy night. I returned the following evening to find the lazy beaver swimming, frolicking, sliding, sprawling, diving and surfacing all by himself. The eager beaver had finished the handsome den in the middle of the pond and was fussing around the dam. I didn’t see the little girl beaver at first, but then I heard a splash and saw her swimming toward the den, and then she disappeared.
Could it be, that as the beavers felt the sun traveling south and sniffed a certain crispness in the air, the little girl beaver had considered her options and charted a course away from laziness and sloth and toward industry and dedication? Perhaps she had felt that queasy feeling that comes with forethought, and having a sense of what the winter might bring she had decided to den up with the eager beaver. After all, she must have thought, look at all the neighborhood improvements! I’ve never known such a hard working beav.
I returned a few days later, earlier in the afternoon than normal, but there they were, out and about. The eager beaver worked on the dam. The little girl beaver tidied up the den. And the lazy beaver swam and frolicked, but it did not seem that his heart was really in it. I watched as he crawled up on a sun-warmed rock, laid down on his back, put one paw behind his head, drew up one knee, crossed that knee with his other ankle, withdrew the aspen twig from his mouth with his free paw, and said, to no one in particular:
“Ah well. Better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.”
There has not been a pond there the last few years. This is a dry part of the country. We haven’t again had 17 inches of rain in 36 hours like we did that one fall, nor a good spring run off from heavy snow pack like we did that spring. Maybe someone blew up the dam. Maybe the dam broke apart and floated down the canal due to neglect, some disruption to the harmony of the pond. I still love to walk along the ditch. Ah well. Better to have known and grieved than never to have known at all.