"Who is that stranger?" Reddy Woodpecker asked Mr. Flicker.
Mr. Flicker glanced at the sly person who was just dodging behind a limb.
"He's no stranger," said Mr. Flicker. "He has lived here a good deal longer than you have. That's Frisky Squirrel."
"Well, he's a little too frisky," Reddy Woodpecker scolded. "He just jumped at me. He has been trying to catch me ever since I came to the farm."
Mr. Flicker laughed.
"That's a regular trick of his," he remarked. "He's always jumping off a fence post at me. But I have no trouble dodging him."
"I don't see why he wants to catch me," Reddy grumbled. "He can't know—yet—that I'm fond of nuts. But in the fall, when the nuts are ripe, I expect I'll make him almost crazy."
The next time Reddy met his tormentor he called to him as pleasantly as if there'd never been any trouble between them.
"How's this place for nuts?"
"Fine!" cried Frisky Squirrel. "The woods beyond the meadow are famous for their beechnuts."