The Tale of Frisky Squirrel

Excerpt

I

Frisky Squirrel Finds Much To Do

Frisky Squirrel was a lively little chap. And he was very bold, too. You see, he was so nimble that he felt he could always jump right out of danger—no matter whether it was a hawk chasing him, or a fox springing at him, or a boy throwing stones at him. He would chatter and scold at his enemies from some tree-top. And it was seldom that he was so frightened that he ran home and hid inside his mother’s house.

Mrs. Squirrel’s house was in a hollow limb of a hickory tree. It was a very convenient place to live; for although the tree was old, it still bore nuts. And it is very pleasant to be able to step out of your house and find your dinner all ready for you—simply waiting to be picked.

Of course, Frisky Squirrel and his mother couldn’t find their dinner on the tree the whole year ’round—because it was only in the fall that there were nuts on it. But luckily there were other things to eat—such as seeds, of which there were many kinds in the woods. And then there was Farmer Green’s wheat—and his corn, too, which Frisky liked most of all.

The woods where Mrs. Squirrel and her son lived were full of the finest trees to climb that anybody could wish for. And Frisky loved to go leaping from branch to branch, and from tree to tree. He was so fearless that he would scamper far out on the ends of the smallest limbs. But no matter how much they bent and swayed beneath his weight, he was never afraid; in fact, that was part of the fun.

As she watched Frisky whisking about among the trees, now swinging on this branch, now leaping far out to that one, Mrs. Squirrel sometimes wondered how he could keep dashing about so madly. Though the old lady was pretty spry, herself, she was content to sit still some of the time. But Frisky Squirrel was almost never still except when he was asleep. There was so much to do! Frisky wished that the days were longer, for though he tried his hardest, he couldn’t climb all the trees in the forest. Each night he had to give up his task, only to begin all over again the next morning. If there had been nothing to do but climb the trees Frisky would have been able to climb more of them. But there were other things that took time.

There were the birds, for instance. Frisky simply had to tease them. Perhaps it was just because he was so full of fun—or mischief, as it is sometimes called. Anyhow, he delighted in visiting their nests; and chasing them; and scolding at them. And it was not always the littlest birds, either, that Frisky teased. There was that loud-mouthed fellow, Jasper Jay, the biggest blue jay in the whole neighborhood. Frisky liked nothing better than bothering Jasper Jay—for Jasper always lost his temper and flew straight at Frisky. And then would follow the finest sport of all.

But a time came at last when Frisky teased Jasper Jay almost once too often, though that is another story.

One day Frisky Squirrel came upon Jasper Jay’s nest when Jasper and his wife were both away from home....