300
XTails and Ears
Among all his friends, Frisky Squirrel liked to play with Jimmy Rabbit best. You see, Jimmy never wanted to eat him. He was so fond of tender young sprouts, and of Farmer Green’s vegetables, that he wouldn’t have taken even the smallest bite out of Frisky. He would have laughed at the very idea.
There was something else, too, about Jimmy Rabbit, that Frisky Squirrel liked; he was always thinking of new things to do—new places to visit, new games, new tricks to play on other forest-people.
To be sure, Jimmy and Frisky did notalways agree—but that is not surprising, because their tastes were so different. For instance, there was nothing that Frisky Squirrel liked better than a hickory nut, while Jimmy Rabbit never would so much as touch one. But if anybody said “cabbage” to Jimmy Rabbit he would have to stop playing and hurry to Farmer Green’s garden. You see how fond of cabbage Jimmy was.
There were other things, too, on which Frisky and Jimmy held different views. They were forever disputing about ears and tails. Frisky Squirrel, as you know, had a beautiful, long, bushy tail, and short little ears; while Jimmy Rabbit had ears half as long as he was, and almost no tail at all!
“Really, Frisky, you ought to have that tail of yours cut off,” Jimmy said one day. “It’s terribly out of fashion to wear a tailso long as yours. As a special favor, I’ll be willing to cut it off for you, with a big pair of shears that my mother has.”
Frisky Squirrel was just a bit angry at this remark about his tail.
“What about your ears?” he asked. “Not one of the forest-people—except rabbits—wears his ears so long as you do. I must say that they look very queer. How’d you like to have me trim them for you?”
“Tell you what we’ll do,” Jimmy Rabbit said. “I’ll cut off your tail and you’ll cut off my ears. What do you say?”
Somehow or other, Frisky did not quite like the idea of losing his tail. He was so used to having it that he was afraid he might miss it dreadfully. And he even thought that he would rather keep it—even if itwasout of fashion.
But Jimmy Rabbit ran home to get hismother’s shears. And when he came back with them Frisky couldn’t think of any good excuse for not letting Jimmy cut off his tail for him. As Jimmy came hopping up with the shears, Frisky Squirrel put out his paw.
“What do you want?” asked Jimmy.
“The shears!” Frisky said. “I’m going to trim your ears, you know.”
“Oh—yes!” Jimmy answered. “But I thought of thisfirst, you remember. So I’ll cut your tail off first. Then you’ll have your turn—see?” He kept a firm hold on the shears. And almost before Frisky knew what was happening Jimmy had stepped behind him and had placed Frisky’s tail between the big shears.
“Will it hurt?” Frisky asked, as he looked behind him.
“It’ll all be over in a jiffy,” said Jimmy Rabbit.
300
XIJimmy Rabbit is too Late
It was just as Jimmy Rabbit had said. You remember that as he stood behind Frisky Squirrel’s back with his mother’s big shears, all ready to cut off Frisky’s tail, he had told Frisky that “it would all be over in a jiffy”?
Well, itwas. But things didn’t happen just as Jimmy Rabbit had expected. He had taken a good, firm grip on the shears, and he was just about to shut them upon Frisky’s tail with a snap, when somebody called Frisky’s name. Frisky knew who it was right away. It was his mother! And like most of us, when our motherscatch us doing something we ought not to do, Frisky was so surprised and so startled that he gave a great jump.
That jump was all that saved Frisky’s tail. For just as Mrs. Squirrel called, Jimmy Rabbit shut the shears together as hard as he could. But Jimmy was too late. When Frisky jumped, his tail followed him, of course. It whisked out from between the shears; and they closed upon nothing at all.
“Now, that’s too bad!” Jimmy exclaimed. He had been so interested in what he was doing that he had never heard Mrs. Squirrel at all. “Come back here and we’ll try again.”
The words were scarcely out of Jimmy Rabbit’s mouth when he received a terrific box on the ear. Now, it’s bad enough for anybody to have his ears boxed. But Jimmy’s ears were so big that I dare say ithurt him three times as much as it would have hurt anyone else. And it surprised him, too. For he hadn’t heard Mrs. Squirrel as she stole up behind him. Anyhow, he ran off howling, taking his mother’s shears with him.
“That awful Rabbit boy!” Mrs. Squirrel said. “A moment more and he would have cut off your beautiful tail—your best feature, too!”
“What’s a feature, Mother?” Frisky asked.
“Why—your nose, and your eyes, and your ears—anything of that sort,” Mrs. Squirrel said. “It makes me feel faint just to think what almost happened.”
“But Jimmy Rabbit says long tails are out of fashion,” said Frisky.
“Out of fashion indeed!” Mrs. Squirrel sniffed. “He’s jealous—that’s what’s the trouble with him. He wishes he had afine, long, bushy tail himself. Goodness me! I’m all of a flutter—I’m so upset.” And poor Mrs. Squirrel sat right down and fanned herself with her sun-bonnet. “Now, don’t you ever let anybody try to cut off your tail again,” she said to Frisky. “You have your father’s tail. And everybody always said that he had the most beautiful tail that was ever seen in these woods.”
Frisky didn’t quite understand what his mother meant. If he had his father’s tail, then where was his? And if it was his, then where was his father’s? All the way home he kept asking himself questions like those. But whatever the answers might be, Frisky was glad that he still bore that beautiful brush. He began to see that he would have looked very queer, with just a short stub like Jimmy Rabbit’s.
300
XIIFrisky Visits the Gristmill
Frisky Squirrel was very fond of wheat-kernels. Somehow or other he heard that there was a place on Swift River called the gristmill, where there was almost all the wheat in the world—at least that is what Frisky heard. So he started out, one day, to find the gristmill. He thought he could have a very pleasant time there.
Frisky had no trouble at all in finding the gristmill. It was just below the mill-dam. And everybody knew where that was.
The gristmill was an old stone buildingwith a red roof. And once inside it Frisky saw great heaps of wheat-kernels everywhere. And there were sacks and sacks too—some of them stuffed with kernels, which Frisky was so fond of, and some of them filled with a fine white powder, which Frisky didn’t like so well, because it got in his eyes, and up his nose, and made him sneeze. It was the same sort of powder into which he had fallen one time at Farmer Green’s house. It was flour, of course—you must have guessed that.
The gristmill was a quiet sort of building. There seemed to be nobody there at all. And Frisky helped himself freely to wheat-kernels, for it was very early in the morning and he had not had his breakfast. He was just telling himself what a delightful place the gristmill was, and how glad he was that he had heard about it, whensuddenly there was a terrible noise—a grinding, and whirring, and buzzing, and pounding. The very floor trembled and shook, and Frisky expected that in another instant the roof would come crashing down on him.
He leaped away from the bag of wheat-kernels on which he had been breakfasting and he bounded through the great doorway and ran along the rail-fence, far up the road, thinking that each moment would be his last. For Frisky believed that the end of the world had come. And he never stopped running until he was safe inside his mother’s house.
Mrs. Squirrel was not at home. And it was so long before she came in and found Frisky that he had begun to think he would never see her again.
“Whatever is the matter?” Mrs. Squirrel asked. Frisky was making adreadful noise, for he was crying as if he would never stop.
“It’s the end of the world!” Frisky sobbed. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”
Bit by bit Mrs. Squirrel managed to learn where Frisky had been and what had happened to him. And she smiled when she found out what had frightened him. Since it was quite dark inside their home in the hollow limb of the big hickory tree, Frisky could not see his mother smiling. But her voice sounded very cheerful when she said—
“Now stop crying, my son. There’s nothing to cry about. The end of the world hasn’t come. Andthat’ssomething you and I don’t need to worry about, anyhow.”
“What you heard was only the mill-wheels turning. You must have reachedthe gristmill before the miller had come to begin his day’s work. That was why everything was so still. I don’t wonder you were frightened when all that noise began. But gristmills are always like that. They make a terrible noise when they grind the wheat.”
Frisky Squirrel stopped sobbing then. He was glad that his mother knew exactly what had happened. But he made up his mind that whenever he wanted any wheat-kernels to eat he would not go to the gristmill for them. Luckily the gristmill had notquiteall the wheat in the world.
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XIIIFun on the Milldam
There was something about the dam across Swift River that Frisky Squirrel simply couldn’t keep away from—after he had forgotten, somewhat, his fright at the gristmill. Only a few days passed after Frisky had run home from the mill in a panic, before he was back again. He liked to run across the top of the dam and look down at his reflection in the water on one side. Here and there a narrow stream spilled over the top of the dam. Frisky felt very brave as he leaped over those little rivulets. And he loved to watch them as they fell in thin, silverycascades upon the rocks far below. It was great sport.
One day when Frisky reached the dam he heard a dog bark not far away. It was the miller’s dog. He had seen Frisky as he crossed the road. And he at once hurried toward him.
Frisky Squirrel was annoyed. He had just been thinking what a good time he was going to have. But when that dog started to bark Frisky knew that his fun was spoiled. He wasn’t frightened. Oh, no! But he was sure that the dog would not go away untilhedid.
“Well, I’ll just take one run across the dam,” Frisky said to himself. “I’ll stay on the other side of the river until he grows tired of waiting. And then I’ll come back.”
He hurried on to the bank of the river; and in a few moments he was skippingalong the dam. The dog was still barking. And Frisky looked around at him. To his great surprise, there was the dog following him, right along the top of the dam. But even then Frisky was not frightened. He simply hurried a little faster. He had not dreamed that the miller’s dog would chase him across Swift River. But there he was. And he was running fast, too.
Then something happened that really frightened Frisky Squirrel. At first he could hardly believe it. But it was true. It really was another dog that was barking—another dog that was waiting on the other side of Swift River. And almost as soon as Frisky saw him, that other dog started right across the dam, to meet Frisky!
Fun on the mill dam
There was no time to lose. Frisky had to make up his mind very quickly. He gave just one look at the deep mill pond. He could swim—if he had to. But he just hated to get wet. And he knew that the dogs were much faster swimmers than he was. So he looked away from the water with a shudder. And he peeped over the steep side of the dam and gazed at the rocks below, where the water splashed into countless drops.
Those rocks were a long way beneath him. But there was one thing about Frisky Squirrel—he never was the least bit dizzy, or afraid, when he looked down from high places. Perhaps there were too many other things to be afraid of—such as coons and foxes—and dogs.
The miller’s dog was drawing nearer now, because Frisky had stopped. And the dog from the other side of the river was only about six jumps away!
Frisky Squirrel didn’t wait another instant.He jumped right down the face of the dam. Where he had stood a moment before the two dogs came together with a bump. Probably they would have started to fight, if they had not been so interested in Frisky Squirrel. There they stood, with their necks stretched out over the edge of the dam, watching Frisky as he went rolling and tumbling down to the bed of the river. And when they saw him pick himself up and go skipping from stone to stone until he reached the shore and scampered away, they looked very foolish indeed.
In fact, they felt foolish, too. And without saying one word they turned about and each crept back to his own side of Swift River.
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300
XIVMrs. Squirrel Has a Visitor
Fatty Coon was very hungry. And he stole along through the woods very quietly, hoping to find something to eat. To his great joy, it was not long before he discovered Mrs. Squirrel’s home. He crept up to the nest silently; for he hoped to catch Mrs. Squirrel and Frisky inside. But Mrs. Squirrel and her son were both away.
Fatty was disappointed. But he made up his mind to go into the house anyhow, to see what he could find there. So he pushed through the narrow doorway. It was a tight squeeze; but Fatty managedto get inside. And there he found a fine lot of beechnuts, which Mrs. Squirrel had brought home and stored, in order to have something to eat during the winter.
Fatty Coon just loved beechnuts. And he squatted down on the floor and began to eat. He ate and ate until he was half-buried in beechnut-shells. And he never stopped until he had finished the very last beechnut. He wished there had been more, though you would think he had had quite enough, for Fatty’s sides bulged out so that he was rounder than ever. He smiled as he thought of the surprise Mrs. Squirrel would have when she came home and found her winter food all gone. And then he stood up, shook the shells out of his coat, and started to climb through the doorway.
Fatty was still smiling as he stuck his head through the opening in the tree. Butall at once his smile faded away. You remember that he had had hard work to squeeze through the narrow doorway when he entered the house? Well, now his sides stuck out so far that he couldn’t get through it at all. He tried and tried; but though he struggled hard, Fatty found that he simply could not squeeze through. He had stuffed himself so full of beechnuts that he was too big to get out of the hole. And there he was—caught fast by his own greediness! Yes! Fatty Coon was a prisoner.
Fatty had smiled because he thought Mrs. Squirrel would be surprised when she came home. And he had not been mistaken about that. When Mrs. Squirrel and her son Frisky scampered up the tree about sundown that evening they had the surprise of their lives—though not just the sort of surprise Fatty had expected.
They looked in through their doorway and scolded. And they ordered Fatty to get out of their house at once.
He would have been glad enough to leave, you may be sure. But he couldn’t go just then. And at last Frisky Squirrel and his mother had to go and spend the night in the house of a friend.
When they came back to the old hickory tree the next morning Fatty Coon had gone. He had tried the whole night long to get through the doorway. And at last—just as the sun was rising—he managed to slip out.
Mrs. Squirrel knew that Fatty had had a hard time, because he had left a good deal of his fur behind him. It clung to the sides of the doorway. And Mrs. Squirrel spent half the day picking it off and throwing the beechnut-shells out of her house. She was a very neat housekeeper;and she was quite annoyed to find her house upset.
As for Frisky, he began to bring home another store of nuts that very day. After what had happened neither he nor his mother had any fear that Fatty Coon would ever trouble them again.
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XVHelpful Mr. Crow
Frisky Squirrel’s mother had often told him not to have anything to do with Mr. Crow. “He’s such a tricky old fellow!” she said. “He seems to have nothing to do but get folks into trouble. Don’t go near him, and don’t have anything to say to him.”
Now, I’m sure Frisky Squirrel wanted to mind his mother. But he couldn’t help feeling that she was mistaken about Mr. Crow. He was so solemn, and he always looked so like a preacher—for he usually wore shiny, black clothes—that Frisky Squirrel thought him a very nice oldgentleman. And he told such interesting stories, too! Frisky could listen to him by the hour.
So, in spite of his mother’s warnings, whenever he met Mr. Crow Frisky Squirrel would always stop and ask the old gentleman how his cold was. You see, Mr. Crow’s voice was never what you would callclear. You might say that there was a decided croak in it. And very often, even on hot summer days, he would have a muffler wound about his throat.
It happened that one day when Frisky came across Mr. Crow in the woods, something reminded Mr. Crow that he knew where there were plenty of butternuts—just waiting to be eaten.
“Is that so?” Frisky exclaimed. “Have you had some of them?”
“No! I don’t care for butternuts,” Mr. Crow said, with a slight cough. “I’ve alwaysconsidered them bad for my throat. I’ve made it a rule never to eat them. You don’t happen to like them, do you?”
Now, if there was one thing that Frisky Squirrel liked a little better than anything else, it was butternuts. And when he answered Mr. Crow’s question he was so excited that his voice shook just the least bit.
“I’mveryfond of them,” he said.
“Well, well!” Mr. Crow exclaimed. “I’m glad I happened to mention the matter. They’re there—heaps of ’em—great brown piles of ’em—thousands of ’em!”
“Whereare they?” Frisky asked him eagerly.
“Oh—I thought I told you,” Mr. Crow said. “Why—they’re in Farmer Green’s attic. His boy put them up there to dry. I saw them through the window, this very day.”
Frisky Squirrel was disappointed.
“I mustn’t go to Farmer Green’s house,” he said.
“Pooh! Why not?” asked Mr. Crow.
“It isn’t safe. I went there once to get some cake, and I nearly lost my life in the kitchen.”
“Ah! But this is different,” Mr. Crow explained. “You don’t have to go into the kitchen at all. All you have to do is to climb that big tree close by the house. And you can hop right through the attic window. There’s nobody upstairs in the daytime. In fact, I should call it one of the safest places to go that I know of.”
When Mr. Crow said that, Frisky believed him. Mr. Crow was so old, and so wise, and so solemn, that Frisky thought that anything he said must be true.
“I’m going past Farmer Green’s house right now,” Mr. Crow told Frisky. “I have a little matter to attend to over in thecornfield. And if you want to come along with me I don’t mind stopping to show you where the butternuts are. But of course if you’re afraid—” Mr. Crow stopped to cough. He buttoned his coat closer around his throat. And then he looked sideways at Frisky Squirrel.
“Afraid!” Frisky exclaimed. “I’m not afraid at all.”
“Good!” said Mr. Crow. “Now, then, young fellow! You skip along over to Farmer Green’s and I’ll be waiting for you down the road a bit.”
Old Mr. Crow flapped himself away then. And Frisky Squirrel hurried off in a straight line for the farmhouse.
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XVICaught in the Attic
Long before Frisky Squirrel reached Farmer Green’s place, he began to worry for fear Mr. Crow had grown tired of waiting for him. To be sure, he knew that the butternuts were up in the attic. But to tell the truth, Frisky felt uneasy about visiting the farmhouse. And he hoped that Mr. Crow would show him just how to get through the attic window, as he had promised.
Just as he came in sight of the farmhouse Frisky heard Mr. Crow calling to him from a tall tree close by the road. He was glad to hear the old gentleman’s huskyvoice. And he couldn’t help thinking how kind Mr. Crow was, and how mistaken his mother had been to believe that Mr. Crow liked to get folks into trouble.
“Come on!” said Mr. Crow, as Frisky paused beneath the tall tree. “I’m going to fly over to that tree right next the farmhouse. You run along the stone-wall and climb up beside me.”
“Now, then!” said Mr. Crow a few minutes later, when Frisky had joined him. “There’s the window—wide open. And there are the butternuts, lying on the floor.”
Frisky could see great heaps of nuts. And without another word he crept out on a limb that brushed the window-sill and in another moment he was inside Farmer Green’s attic. Frisky forgot to thank Mr. Crow. He never once thought of that, he was in such a hurry to taste those nuts.
He just ate and ate and ate; and he was so busy cracking the nuts and picking out the meats that he never noticed that it was growing dark.
At last, to his astonishment, the attic door opened. Frisky leaped behind a pile of butternuts and hid, while someone walked across the floor. Then there was a bang. And Frisky shivered when he heard it. But the person left the attic at once and went downstairs.
Frisky Squirrel breathed easily again. And he stole out from behind the pile of nuts. Somehow, he did not care to eat any more. He wanted to get out of the house. So he went to the window. And then Frisky Squirrel was really frightened. The window was shut!
You see, while Frisky was so busy eating butternuts, a storm was gathering. And it grew so dark, and the wind howledso shrilly, that Farmer Green’s wife thought she had better shut the attic window, to keep the rain from beating in.
How Frisky Squirrel did wish he had minded his mother and kept away from old Mr. Crow! Poor Frisky looked out through the little square panes of glass. His friend Mr. Crow was nowhere to be seen. Frisky had hoped that the old gentleman would be waiting for him, and that since Mr. Crow had told him how to get inside the attic he would be able to tell him how to get out again.
The wind swept the branches of the tall tree back and forth across the window. How easy it would have been—if the window had been open—to hop out upon one of those swaying limbs! Frisky pressed his soft little body close against the glass and pushed as hard as he could. But he couldn’t break out of his prison. It was aqueer thing—that glass! He could see through it just as if there was nothing there; and yet it held him fast. Frisky could not understand it.
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XVIIFarmer Green’s Cat
There were plenty of nuts in the attic of Farmer Green’s house, where Frisky Squirrel found himself a prisoner. And you might think that he wouldn’t have felt so unhappy to be there. But Frisky was unhappy. He was so frightened that he crept into a corner and stayed there, shivering, for a long time. And he couldn’t have eaten a single one of those nuts if he had tried. He wanted to be free. He wanted to be out of doors. He wanted to go home.
After a time the storm passed. The wind stopped blowing. And the sun shoneagain. But nobody came to the attic to open the window. When it grew quite light Frisky did not feel so frightened. And at last he crept out of his corner and went nosing about the room, hoping to find a hole big enough to squeeze through.
Now, you must not think Frisky Squirrel was stupid, when I tell you that the door was open all this time. It was open just the smallest crack, for Farmer Green’s wife hadn’t quite closed it when she went downstairs. Frisky had been too frightened to notice it. Besides, the attic had been dark, you know.
Well, when Frisky found that crack he was the happiest little fellow you ever saw. It was only a narrow opening; but he slipped through it. And there he was, right at the head of the stairs! So downstairs he hurried. The door below was wide open. And in less time than it takesto tell the story, Frisky was in Farmer Green’s kitchen. He remembered that room very well, for he had been there when he came to taste that white-frosted cake.
But this time Frisky did not stop to look for any cake. He just scampered across the floor toward the wide doorway. And as he bounded across the room something sprang out from behind the stove and started after him.
Frisky Squirrel saw that some animal had leaped at him. He didn’t stop to take a good look; but he supposed that it was a small dog that had been drying himself by the fire. Frisky knew that dogs couldn’t climb trees. So he sprang through the door, never touching the big stone doorstep at all, and hurried toward a tree in Farmer Green’s yard. He laughed as he scurried up the tree-trunk. And then he looked down at his enemy.
Then Frisky Squirrel’s heart almost stood still. That small animal was coming right up the tree after him! Of course, it wasn’t a dog at all. It was Farmer Green’s cat. Frisky had never seen a cat before and he began to wonder whether the small creature could fly, as well as climb trees. He scampered to the top of the tree; and then he leaped upon a branch of another tree close by.
No! The small animal could not fly. She climbed as high as she dared. And then she stopped. Her eyes glared fiercely; and her tail grew as big as Frisky’s own. But that didn’t help her at all. She could only sit there and watch Frisky Squirrel as he dropped from branch to branch, until she lost sight of him among the leaves.
300
XVIIIThe Threshing-machine
One day, late in the summer, Frisky Squirrel saw something that caused him great excitement. Right into the center of one of Farmer Green’s fields he saw Farmer Green’s horses drag a queer sort of wagon. It was bigger than any other wagon he had ever seen, and had wheels upon it in all sorts of strange places, instead of just at the four corners, like all the wagons he had ever noticed before.
Frisky climbed a tree, in order to get a better view of what was happening. As he watched, he saw still another odd wagon hauled upon the field alongside the first one. This wagon carried a broadwalk which led from the back and went right up what you might call a hill, to the front of the wagon. And there it stopped, with a wooden bar blocking the way. Frisky Squirrel thought that that was the strangest path he had ever seen, for it seemed to lead to nowhere, and why it should have a bar at the top, to keep anyone from going nowhere at all, was more than even his lively mind could puzzle out.
In and out and about these strange wagons were as many as a dozen men, and one boy—each of them as busy as he could be. And as for the boy, Johnnie Green, he was busier than anybody else. He seemed to be everywhere at once, and in everybody’s way. And Frisky couldn’t see that he was doing anything at all. But he noticed that Johnnie appeared to be having a fine time.
As Frisky Squirrel looked down upon this unusual sight from his perch in the tree he saw that Farmer Green’s wagons—the kind Frisky had often seen before—were bringing up sheaves of wheat. And pretty soon—and this made Frisky’s eyes almost pop out of his head—he saw a man lead a pair of horses up that short, steep walk and tie them to the bar at the top of it.
Then the horses began to walk. Now, probably you wouldn’t think there was anything strange about that. But there was. The odd thing about that was that although the horses walked, they didn’t get anywhere at all. So far as Frisky Squirrel could see, they just walked and walked, and that was all there was to it. After they had walked for a long time they still stayed right in the same place, tied fast to the wooden bar in front of them.
Now, when the horses were walking, the other wagon began to set up a great noise. It reminded Frisky of the time the gristmill began to grind, when he thought the world was coming to an end. Those queer wheels on the wagon began to turn, too. But Frisky didn’t pay much attention to them. What caught his eye and kept him puzzling was those two horses, always walking, but never going anywhere.
Frisky Squirrel stayed in his tree as long as he could, until at last he simply had to hurry home and beg his mother to come over to the field with him.
As it happened, Mrs. Squirrel was not very busy that day, so she dropped her knitting, or whatever it was that she was doing, and pretty soon she and Frisky were up in the tree that he had climbed before.
“Oh! they’re threshing!” Mrs. Squirrelsaid, after she had taken one good look at what was going on. “They’re threshing out the wheat-kernels, so the miller can grind them into flour.”
“But those horses—” said Frisky. “Why is it that they don’t walk right against that bar, and break it, and tumble off onto the ground?”
“That’s a horse-power,” Mrs. Squirrel explained. “The path the horses are treading on moves, and that’s why they stay right in the same place. The path moves ’round and ’round all the time, like a broad chain. That’s what makes the wheels turn on the threshing-machine.”
“It must be fun,” said Frisky Squirrel. “I wish I could be a horse, and make that horse-power turn like that.”
“Nonsense!” said his mother. “You’d soon grow tired of it.”
But Frisky Squirrel knew better.
Caught in the attic
300
XIXFrisky’s Prison
Frisky Squirrel simply couldn’t keep away from the field where the wheat was being threshed. He was on hand before the men came in the morning, and he was the last to leave the place at night. He ate all his meals right on the spot, and went home only to sleep.
Now, it was not long before Johnnie Green spied Frisky Squirrel loitering about the field. And he made up his mind that that young squirrel was altogether too bold. So Johnnie Green rigged up a trap, which he made from an old box, a few sticks, and a bit of string. And one noon,while the men were eating their lunch under some trees a little way from the threshing-machine, Frisky Squirrel was just reckless enough to steal up and try to get his luncheon too, by eating some of the wheat-kernels. He noticed a tempting little heap of kernels, right beside a little box. And he had just stopped to eat them when all at once the box toppled over on him, and there he was—caught!
When Johnnie Green discovered that he had captured that young squirrel he was just as glad as Frisky was sorry and frightened. That, you see, is just the difference betweencatchingandbeing caught. It makes a great difference whether you are outside the trap, or in it. And Frisky Squirrel was in it. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get away.
He made up his mind that if anybodytried to lift him out of the box he would bite him. But Johnnie Green had caught squirrels before. He pulled on a pair of heavy gloves, and all Frisky’s biting did no good—or harm—at all.
When Johnnie reached home he put his prize into a neat little wire cage. As soon as Frisky found himself inside it he looked all around, to see if there wasn’t some opening big enough to squeeze through. And sure enough! there was a little door. And in a twinkling Frisky had popped himself through it and had started to run.
He ran and ran. But strange to say, all his running took him nowhere at all. At first he couldn’t discover what was the matter. But after a while he saw that he was inside a broad wheel, made of wire. And when he ran the wheel simply spun ’round and ’round.
He stopped running then. For he thought of the horses that made the horse-power go. He was in just the same fix that they were in. He could run as fast as he pleased, but he would still stay right there inside the wheel.
Poor Frisky Squirrel crept back into his cage. He remembered what his mother had said, when he wished he could be a horse, and make the tread-mill go. “You’d soon grow tired of it,” she had told him.
At the time, Frisky hadn’t believed her. But now he knew that his mother was wiser than he was. And he wondered if he was ever going to see her again.
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300
XXJohnnie Green Forgets Something
Although Johnnie Green took good care of Frisky Squirrel, that once lively young chap did not like his new home in the wire cage at all. His young master gave him plenty to eat—nuts and grain—all the things that Frisky had always liked before. But now nothing tasted the same. Frisky never felt really hungry. He just sat in his cage and moped and sulked.
Once in a great while he would go out into his wheel, and run and run until he was so tired that he was ready to drop. Whenever Johnnie Green saw him runninginside the wheel that young man would laugh aloud—he was so pleased.
But nothing ever pleased Frisky Squirrel any more. He grew peevish and cross and sulky. Being cooped up in that little wire prison day after day made an entirely different squirrel of him. He longed to be free once more—free to scamper through the tree-tops, and along the stone-walls and the rail-fences. And at night he dreamed of hunting for beechnuts, and chestnuts, and hickorynuts, on which he would feast to his heart’s content—in his dreams. But in the daytime, when his young master put some of those very same nuts into his cage, Frisky would hardly touch them. He lost his plumpness. His smooth coat grew rough. And his tail—that beautiful tail that Jimmy Rabbit had tried to cut off—alas!it was no longer beautiful. It was thin and ragged-looking.
At last Johnnie Green began to be worried about his pet squirrel. And one day when Frisky refused to eat a single nut Johnnie Green thought that he must be really ill. So he opened the door of the cage, which he always kept carefully fastened, and forgetting all about his thick gloves he put his hand inside the little wire house, picked Frisky up by the back of his neck, just as if he were a kitten, and lifted him out of his prison.
Johnnie wanted to see if he could find out what was the trouble with the little fellow. He thought that perhaps he had a bad tooth, which prevented his eating. And Johnnie tried to look inside of Frisky’s mouth.
At first Frisky kept perfectly still. Hecould hardly believe that he was outside that horrid, cramped cage. But it was true! And when Johnnie Green began to poke at his mouth with a bare finger Frisky Squirrel thought that it was high time for him to do something.
So he did it. He didn’t wait another second. Quick as a flash he sank his sharp teeth into Johnnie Green’s finger.
Poor Johnnie Green! He gave such a yell that you could have heard him far away on the other side of Swift River. That was the first thing he did. And the next thing that Johnnie did was to drop Frisky right on the ground.
That was exactly what Frisky wanted. He no sooner touched the ground than he was away like a shot. It was not at all like running inside the wheel. Every leap carried him further away from Farmer Green’s house. And he hadcrossed the road and disappeared behind the stone-wall before Johnnie Green knew what had happened.
For several days after that Johnnie Green had to keep his finger bound up in a bandage. And he felt very sad at losing his pet squirrel.
But Frisky Squirrel was not sad at all. And neither was his mother. At first, when Frisky tumbled inside her house she hardly knew him. For a long time she had almost stopped believing he would ever come home again. And now that he had come he was so changed that she could scarcely believe it was he.
The first thing that Mrs. Squirrel did was to set before Frisky some choice seeds which she had gathered that very day. And Frisky ate every one of them. You see, he had found his appetite again.
For several days after that FriskySquirrel did very little except eat. And it was surprising—the way he began to grow fat. His sides soon stuck out more than they ever had before, and his coat began to grow sleek and shiny. And as for his tail—though it took longer forthatto look beautiful again, in the course of time it became just as thick and handsome as ever. Mrs. Squirrel was very glad of that. For Frisky reminded her of his father once more.