"I haven't explained either of them yet; but we'll get on a little.

Once, and I don't think it was very long ago, there was a little water with a creek flowing out of it in this hollow.

A colony of beavers came along and put up their dam across that creek, and that backed the water up a foot or two.

If you'd skirted this hollow you'd have seen that it's tolerably level, and a foot rise would spread the water quite a way.

I want to say that it was probably a swamp with only grass on it when the creek ran through it.