“If you come back afterwards, I will tell you some more,” said the mother woodpigeon.
Tommy Smith said he would, and then he ran away as fast as he could to his lessons, for he was a little late. And as he ran, he could hear the mother woodpigeon saying, “Come back soo-oo-oo-oon! come back soo-oo-oo-oon!”
CHAPTER X.
THE SQUIRREL
“The pert little squirrel’s as brisk as can be;
He calls his house ‘Tree-tops,’ and lives in a tree.”
SO Tommy Smith went home to his lessons, and when he had finished them, he put on his hat and came out again, and began to walk through the woods to where the mother woodpigeon was waiting for him on her nest. “Tommy Smith! Tommy Smith! Where are you going to, Tommy Smith?” said a voice which he had not heard before. At any rate, he had not heard it talk before. Such a funny little voice it was, something between a cough and a sob, and if it had not said all those words so very distinctly, it would have sounded like “sug, sug,—sug, sug,—sug, sug, sug, sug, sug.” Now I come to think of it, Tommy Smith must have heard it before, for he had often been for walks in the woods. But when a voice which has only said “sug, sug” before, begins to talk and say whole sentences, it is not so easy to recognise it. “Who can that be?” said Tommy Smith; and then he looked all about, but he could see no one. “Who are you?” he called out; “and where are you calling me from?”
“From here, Tommy Smith, from here,” answered the voice. “Can’t you see me? Why here I am.”
“Are you the rabbit?” said Tommy Smith; but he thought directly, “Oh no, it can’t be the rabbit, because it comes from a tree, and no rabbit could burrow up a tree.”
“The rabbit, indeed!” said the voice. “Oh no, I am not the rabbit. That is a funny sug, sug, sug, sug-gestion.”