Douglas Glein, age 8, of Mundelein, Illinois, for his question:

Do beavers get slivers in their gums?

Andy has a team of experts to help him find the true facts. But these human helpers could not give a definite yes or no to this question. So your reporter had to go forth to track down the story for himself. Of course, only a beaver would know the real truth about a problem of this sort. Naturally he could not tell it to a human being. But beavers and other animals always seem willing to discuss their problems with Andy, who happens to be a pixie type pooka.

It was winter in the north woods when Andy set out to find a friendly beaver. At this time of year, he had to skate across an icy pond and knock on the wall of the beaver's house of sticks. It was some time before the beaver paid any attention. Then he appeared on the bank. No, he was not outdoors when Andy arrived. He dived down a hole in his floor, swam underwater and through a tunnel beside his pond. He poked his nose out of his back door, squinted at his visitor and decided that it was safe to greet Andy as a friend.

This beaver turned out to be a :wise old fella, almost 19 years old. Andy did not wish to dive under the ice and enter the house by the underwater front door. So his polite host pulled the sticks aside to make a pixy sized hole. He quickly closed it to keep out the cold. Then the two friends squatted high and dry on the hard dirt floor inside the cozy house. Andy noticed that the walls were lined with stacks and stacks of twigs. This reminded him of his question    for the sticks were the beaver's winter supplies of food.

The old beaver talked a lot about his tooth problems before he answered the question. It seems that his long front teeth are marvelous chisels and choppers. But they keep on growing longer all the time. If he let them grow too long, they would chisel right through his lower lip. So he has to keep filing and filing down their cutting edges. In summer, when he chops and cuts wood, he wears them down without noticing. In winter, he has to do this by peeling and chewing the twigs in his storeroom.

The problem of splinters in the gums made him smile, and for a moment the old timer seemed to forget the answer. Then he remembered than maybe once in a lifetime, a young beaver gets a splinter in his gum, or even in his lip. It seems that the

Do beavers get slivers   for Wednesday, January 26, 1972 painful experience teaches the youngster a lesson. He learns how to use his teeth to chisel chips from woody trees more carefully, so that the splinters don't stab his gums and lips. He also learns to choose his snacks from pliable or crumbly bark and the tender wood inside young twigs.

The old beaver longed for the warm spring weather so that all his family could go outdoors again and team up to do their merry chores. He expected that some of the youngsters might get a splinter or two as part of their school work. He even admitted that long ago, when he was a busy young beaver, even he got a woody splinter in one of his gums. He used his cleaver hands to pry it loose, but the stab hurt for a long time.