The Tale of Frisky Squirrel Part 3

X

Tails 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 not always 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 fas.h.i.+on to wear a tail so 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 it _was_ out of fas.h.i.+on.

But Jimmy Rabbit ran home to get his mother'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 this _first_, 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.

XI

Jimmy 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, it _was_. 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 mothers catch 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 it hurt 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 fas.h.i.+on," said Frisky.

"Out of fas.h.i.+on indeed!" Mrs. Squirrel sniffed. "He's jealous--that's what's the trouble with him. He wishes he had a fine, 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.

XII

Frisky 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 building with 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 n.o.body 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, when suddenly 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 cras.h.i.+ng 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 a dreadful 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. And _that's_ something you and I don't need to worry about, anyhow."

"What you heard was only the mill-wheels turning. You must have reached the 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 not _quite_ all the wheat in the world.