"Come, give us another!" he said, at last, throwing away the shell, and speaking with the queerest little squeaky, grumbling voice.
"Why, who taught you how to talk?" asked Minnie, in surprise.
"O, nobody. Squirrels don't go to school. They couldn't keep us quiet on the benches, you see. It makes us ache to sit still!" and he ran round and round the rail of the fence, to rest himself.
"Pray, don't go away yet," called Minnie; "I want to know if all squirrels talk, or what you did to learn."
Down the squirrel jumped into the grass, pulled the blades apart with his paws, and smelt of this weed and that, till at last he found what seemed to satisfy him, for he broke off a sprig, and went back to his seat on the fence.
"Minnie, how should you like to live with us?" he said. "We have good times, I tell you, out in the woods. We do nothing but chatter, and eat, and fly about, all day long. We haven't any master, and the whole world's our play-ground; the deep earth is our cellar; the sun is our lamp and stove."
"But I should frighten the squirrels, I'm so large!" and Minnie stood on tip-toe, to let him see what a great girl--as indeed she was, beside a squirrel!
"The same weed that made me talk like a little girl, will make you grow small as a squirrel. Do you dare to taste it?" and he tossed the green sprig into Minnie's lap.
"Dare? yes, indeed! who's afraid?" She ate the leaves at a mouthful.