Then Frisky sat up on a limb and glared at him.
"Don't mention these nuts to Jasper Jay!" he cried. "I've been hoping he'd forget about them. Eat what you want—if you must. But for goodness' sake don't go and tell the whole neighborhood about them. Just between you and me, these nuts will be ready to eat as soon as there's a frost to sweeten them."
"You're very kind," Reddy Woodpecker told him. "Very kind indeed!"
Well, in about two weeks there was a frost. When Reddy Woodpecker awoke one morning the fields were white and a thin coating of ice covered the watering-trough in the barnyard.
Some of the birds in Pleasant Valley had long since left for the South. And many of those that hadn't announced that they expected to start for a milder climate that very evening.
The weather soon grew warmer. And on the following day Reddy Woodpecker and Frisky Squirrel met at the beech grove.
"These are good nuts, eh?" called Reddy.
"They'd taste sweeter if you weren't here," Frisky Squirrel mumbled out of a full mouth.
XXIV
THE WINTER'S STORE