In many other ways Dickie Deer Mouse was like Frisky Squirrel himself. Dickie's idea of what a good home ought to be was much the same as Frisky's: they both thought that the deserted nest of one of the big Crow family made as fine a house as any one could want. And they couldn't imagine that any food could possibly be better than nuts, berries and grain.
To be sure, Dickie Deer Mouse liked his nuts to have thin shells. But that was because he was smaller than Frisky; so of course his jaws and teeth were not so strong.
Then, too, Dickie Deer Mouse had a trick of gathering good things to eat, which he hid away in some safe place, so that he would not have to go hungry during the winter, when the snow lay deep upon the ground. And even Frisky Squirrel was no spryer at carrying beechnuts—or any other goody—to his secret cupboard than little white-footed Dickie Deer Mouse.
It was no wonder that Dickie could be cheerful right in the dead of winter, when he had a fine store of the very best that the fields and forest yielded, to keep him sleek and fat and happy. So even on the coldest nights, when the icy wind whipped the tree-tops, and the cold, pale stars peeped down among the branches, Dickie scampered through the woods with his friends and had the gayest of times.
No one would have thought that he had a care in the world.
