The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse

by Arthur Scott Bailey

IV

THE BLACKBIRD'S NEST

For a few days after his visit to Mr. Crow's elm, Dickie Deer Mouse kept watch carefully of Mr. Crow's comings and goings. And he decided at last that the old gentleman liked his home too well to leave it.

But Dickie was not discouraged. He had no doubt that he could find some other pleasant quarters in which to spend the summer—quarters that would prove almost as airy, and perhaps more convenient—because they were not so high.

For there was no denying that Mr. Crow's nest was a long, long way from the ground.

So Dickie began to search for birds' nests. And for a time he had to suffer a great deal of scolding by his feathered neighbors. It must be confessed that they were none too fond of Dickie Deer Mouse. There was a story of something he was said to have done one time—a tale about his having driven a Robin family away from their nest, in order to live in it himself.

That seems a strange deed on the part of anyone so gentle as Dickie Deer Mouse. But old Mr. Crow always declared that it was true. And Solomon Owl often remarked that he wished Dickie Deer Mouse would try to drive him away from his home in the hollow hemlock.