XXBEDFELLOWS
Duringhis rambles on the following night Dickie Deer Mouse took great care to keep out of sight of the three families of cousins that had tried to quarter themselves in his new house in the pasture. Moreover he said nothing to anybody about his future home. Fatty Coon had taught him in one lesson that it is sometimes wise to keep a secret.
The night was not ended when Dickie sought the burrow in the pasture once more. He hardly dared hope, as he neared the dooryard, that he would not find a crowd waiting there again. Butwhen he reached his doorway he saw not a soul anywhere around.
He felt happy beyond words. And he popped through his doorway, hurried through the hall—which was a hundred times as long as Fatty Coon's tail—and burst into the cozy chamber.
Dickie had hardly entered the room when he stumbled over something soft. And a voice that sounded exactly like Cousin Dan'l's called out in rather a peevish tone that he'd better look out where he stepped.
"Who's here?" Dickie asked in a faint whisper.
"We are!" the voice replied. "There are eighteen of us in all. And you'd better be careful not to trample on anybody."
Dickie's heart sank. He understood, in a flash, what had happened. Thethree families of cousins were all there, sleeping in his soft bed of dried grasses! They had come back to the house in the pasture ahead of him, and had found the chamber without his help.
At first he almost turned around and left that place forever, without saying another word. But the night had turned cold and a drizzling rain was falling. And he knew that the roof of his summer home must be leaking badly. That underground chamber was delightfully dry and warm. And if the twelve children didn't wake up and begin to cry he saw no reason why he shouldn't spend one night there, anyway.
So he felt his way carefully about the room. There was no denying that it was dreadfully crowded. But at last Dickie Deer Mouse found a vacant spot that was big enough to lie upon. And burrowingdown into the bed of grasses he soon fell asleep.
When Dickie Deer Mouse awoke, after his first sleep in the underground chamber, he thought that summer had come. He hadn't felt so comfortable for weeks. And for a little time he lay quite still, half dozing, enjoying the delightful warmth.
And then all at once he came to his senses. He remembered that he was in the burrow where Mr. and Mrs. Woodchuck had lived, in Farmer Green's pasture. And he recalled unpleasantly the misfortune that had happened: he had been forced to share his snug bedroom with eighteen of his distant cousins.
They were still sleeping soundly all around him. And Dickie Deer Mouse made a strange wish.
"They're here," he said to himself. "And I don't know of any way to get rid of them. I only wish they wouldn't wake up till spring."
XXIONE WAY TO KEEP WARM
Aftermaking his strange wish about his eighteen cousins—that they would sleep straight through the winter—Dickie Deer Mouse crawled out of bed. The sleepers filled the chamber so full that Dickie had to step into the hall before he could stretch himself.
For some reason he seemed to feel unusuallystretchy. Generally when he waked up he sprang up at once and dashed out of his house, to find something to eat. But now he had half a mind to go back to bed again.
He did not do that, however, becausehe wanted to get away from his unwelcome guests for a time. So he crept through his long hall and crawled out through his front door, into the world above.
To Dickie's great surprise a startling change had come over the pasture. The weather had cleared while he slept and the stars twinkled in the heavens above him. And the hillside pasture was white with a thick blanket of snow.
It was cold, too—much colder than it had been when Dickie went to sleep.
Luckily a crust had formed upon the snow—a crust that was just strong enough to support Dickie's weight. And he made swiftly for the spruce woods, to hunt for his supper, for he knew he could find nothing on the ground, covered as it was by the snow.
Dickie felt even hungrier than he usuallydid when starting out of an evening to look for something to eat. But that was not strange, for without knowing it, he had slept several days and nights in the snug chamber with his cousins.
Dickie did not stay out all night long. Yet he took time, before he went home, to hide a small store of spruce seeds in a hollow rail of the pasture fence. He knew that before the long winter came to an end he would find that food in the woods would grow alarmingly scarce.
Long before daybreak Dickie Deer Mouse was glad to return to the underground chamber. And as he crept into the crowded room he thought it the coziest home he had ever had. He knew, at last, what made the place so warm. The soft, round bodies of his eighteen cousins heated it almost as well as if he had had a real stove.
It was lucky for him, after all, that Fatty Coon had told them about Dickie's new house. And now Dickie only hoped that none of them would leave before spring.
That snowstorm proved to be only the first warning of winter. In a few days the weather grew quite warm again. And to Dickie's dismay the three families of cousins waked up and went out of doors to get the air, and gather seeds and such thin-shelled nuts as they could find.
They did not eat all that they picked up. Like Dickie Deer Mouse, they stored some of the food in secret nooks and crannies, against a time of need.
That first early snowstorm had been a good thing for the dwellers in the underground chamber. It had warned them that winter was coming. And during the weeks that passed before the whole countrysidebecame snow-bound they managed to gather enough nuts and seeds to last them through any ordinary winter—if they didn't eat too heartily.
When the real winter finally descended upon Pleasant Valley it found the Deer Mouse cousins quite ready for it. And even if Dickie's relations did wake up now and then, when the weather wasn't too cold, they slept soundly enough at other times, so that they did not disturb him greatly.
Even the children, who had pushed and crowded when they first entered the front hall of the house—even they were surprisingly quiet, when they were asleep.
XXIIQUEER MR. PINE FINCH
Perhapsthe winter was longer than usual; or perhaps Dickie Deer Mouse ate too freely of his hidden store of good things. At any rate, Dickie's hoard slowly grew smaller and smaller. And long before the day came when he bolted the last seed that remained in the hollow fence-rail he had begun to wonder where he should find more food.
While he had been sleeping the birds that stayed in Pleasant Valley during the winter had been feasting greedily upon the very kind of fare that Dickie Deer Mouse needed. Jasper Jay and his noisycronies had taken good care that there shouldn't be a beechnut left. And when they had eaten the last sweet nut they turned to such dried berries as still clung to the withered stocks on which they had grown.
No longer could Dickie Deer Mouse spend so much time asleep in his cozy chamber. Instead, he had to wander far through the woods at night, thankful to pick up a bit here and there as best he might.
On those crisp, cold nights he had to scamper fast in order to keep warm. And often, when dawn came, he crept home still hungry.
At last Dickie's night runs lapped well over into the day. For his search for food became more and more disappointing. And afterward he often wondered what would have happened to him if hehadn't met Mr. Pine Finch early one morning.
Mr. Pine Finch was an odd fellow. He had a peculiar way of talking as if he spoke through his nose. Though Dickie Deer Mouse had seen him before, he had paid scant attention to Mr. Pine Finch. But when he caught sight of him on a certain chilly morning there were so few birds stirring that Dickie stopped short and watched Mr. Pine Finch, who was so busy in a tree-top that he didn't know anybody else was near him.
He was talking to himself. And as nearly as Dickie Deer Mouse could tell, he was remarking—through his nose—that he was having a good breakfast.
That news made Dickie Deer Mouse prick up his big ears. A good breakfast was something that he had not enjoyed for a long, long time.
At first Dickie couldn't quite see what Mr. Pine Finch was about. It was he, beyond a doubt. There could be no more mistaking his odd voice than his plump, black-streaked back, with its splashes of yellow at the base of his tail, and his yellow-edged wings. Dickie had a good view of Mr. Pine-Finch's back, because its owner hung upside down from the tips of the branches of the tree where Dickie spied him.
To Dickie Deer Mouse the sight, at first, was somewhat of a puzzle. He stood quite still, gazing upward in wonder. And then all at once he discovered what Mr. Pine Finch was doing. Something struck Dickie Deer Mouse lightly on his back—something that made him jump.
He looked all around to see what had hit him. And there, on the snow besidehim, lay a bud off the tree above him.
Then Dickie Deer Mouse understood what Mr. Pine Finch was about. He was eating the buds that clung to the tips of the branches.
Dickie Deer Mouse quickly ate that bud; and then he waited, watching eagerly every move that Mr. Pine Finch made.
XXIIIA FEAST AT LAST
To Dickie Deer Mouse, waiting impatiently for Mr. Pine Finch to drop another bud out of the tree-top, it began to seem as if his good luck were short lived. Could it be possible that Mr. Pine Finch was so careful that he lost a bud only once in a long time—perhaps only once a year?
But as Dickie Deer Mouse wondered, a small shower of buds came rattling down upon the snow-crust. And Dickie Deer Mouse snatched them up, every one, and ate them hungrily.
In a little while he felt so much betterthat he called out to Mr. Pine Finch:
"Shake a lot of 'em down—there's a good fellow!"
Mr. Pine Finch fluttered to a perch on a limb and looked down in great surprise.
"Did you speak?" he inquired.
"Yes!" Dickie Deer Mouse piped up. "You know, I can climb a tree; but I can't crawl out to the tips of the branches, because I'm too heavy. So you'll oblige me if you'll drop a few dozen more of those buds."
The request surprised Mr. Pine Finch. His face told that much.
"Buds!" he exclaimed. "Why do you wantbuds?"
"I eat them—when I can get them," Dickie Deer Mouse informed him.
The streaked gentleman in the tree looked quite blank.
"What a strange thing to do!" hecried through his nose—or so it seemed.
"Strange!" Dickie Deer Mouse echoed. "Why, you've just been eating some yourself!" And he couldn't help thinking that Mr. Pine Finch was even odder than he sounded.
"That's so," Mr. Pine Finch admitted. "In fact, I may say that I'm very, very fond of tree-buds. But I'm a bird. And of course everybody knows that you're a rodent."
"I'm hungry, anyway," Dickie Deer Mouse retorted. He didn't mind Mr. Finch's calling him names, if only he would drop some more buds.
"You're hungry, eh?" the odd gentleman in the tree replied. "That reminds me that I'm still hungry myself. So I can't stop to talk with you any longer just now."
Then he turned himself upside down,as he picked out a promising cluster of buds. And before he had finished his breakfast he had dropped so many buds that Dickie Deer Mouse called to him and thanked him for his kindness.
"What! Are you still there?" Mr. Pine Finch exclaimed, gazing down at Dickie as if he were greatly surprised to see him lingering beneath the tree. "I must go away now," Mr. Pine Finch added. "But I'll make this remark before I leave: If you have anything more to say to me, you can find me here almost any morning soon after daybreak." And then he flew off.
Dickie Deer Mouse told himself that he was in luck. By coming to that spot early every day he could pick up buds enough—dropped carelessly by Mr. Pine Finch—to feed himself until spring came and the snow melted and uncovered theground, where he knew he could find food.
So he went home and slept as he had not slept for weeks. And the next morning, when he went back to the tree where he had found Mr. Pine Finch, his eighteen cousins followed him. For Dickie Deer Mouse told them of his good fortune and asked them to share it with him.
As for Mr. Pine Finch, he looked queerer than ever when he saw that Dickie had brought eighteen of his relations with him. However, he bade them all good morning. And he seemed to be even clumsier than he had been the day before. He dropped an enormous number of buds; so many, in fact, that Dickie Deer Mouse wondered how Mr. Pine Finch managed to get enough breakfast for himself.
Perhaps that odd gentleman knewwhat he was about. To tell the truth, he had noticed the day before that Dickie Deer Mouse looked thin and hungry. His coat, too, struck Mr. Pine Finch as being somewhat shabby. But he said nothing to show Dickie Deer Mouse that he knew there was anything wrong. And if he dropped tree-buds on purpose, he never let anyone know it.
Anyhow, Mr. Pine Finch did not fail to appear at that tree a single morning during the rest of the winter. Before spring came the Deer Mouse family had long since decided that he was the best friend they had in all Pleasant Valley. And they all agreed that his voice, although he did talk through his nose, was the pleasantest they had ever heard.
At last the breakfast parties beneath Mr. Pine Finch's favorite tree came to an end. The snow vanished. Warmweather made the underground chamber in Farmer Green's pasture seem crowded and stuffy. And Dickie Deer Mouse said farewell to his eighteen cousins, because he wanted to look for a pleasant place in which to spend the summer.
THE END