“Oh, I know!” cried Tommy Smith. “It is the”—
“Look!” said the voice. And all at once there was a red streak down the trunk of a beech tree and along the ground, and there was a little squirrel sitting at Tommy Smith’s feet, with his tail cocked up over his head. “Oh!” cried Tommy Smith,—and before he could say anything else the squirrel said “Look!” again, and there was another red streak, up the trunk of a pine tree this time,—and there he was sitting on a branch of it, with his tail cocked up over his head, just the same as before.
“Oh dear, Mr. Squirrel,” said Tommy Smith—the branch was not a very high one, and they could talk to each other comfortably—“how fast you do go!”
“Oh, I like to do things quickly,” said the squirrel. “Mine is an active nature during three-parts of the year.”
“And what is it during the other part?” asked Tommy Smith.
“Oh, I don’t know anything about it then,” the squirrel answered.
This puzzled Tommy Smith a little. “Why not?” he said.
“Oh, because I’m asleep,” said the squirrel. “One can’t know much about oneself when one’s asleep, you know; and, besides, it doesn’t matter.”
“But do you go to sleep for such a long time?” said Tommy Smith. “I know that the frogs and the snakes go to sleep all the winter, but I didn’t know any regular animal did.”
“Why, doesn’t the dormouse?” said the squirrel. “He’s a much harder sleeper than I am. I suppose you call him a regular animal.”