“And you don’t look for yours,” said the squirrel. “I do. You see,” he went on, “I only begin hiding things away towards the end of autumn, so there isn’t so very much time.”
“But you have the rest of the year to do it in too,” said Tommy Smith.
“Oh no,” said the squirrel; “that’s quite a mistake. In the spring and summer I have something else to think about. Besides, there is nothing worth hiding away then—no acorns, or beechnuts, or filberts, and, of course, one wants to have something really nice to eat when one wakes up in the winter. But in the autumn all those things are ripe. The autumn is the great eating-time. That is the time of the year that I like best of all.”
“What! better than the spring or the summer?” said Tommy Smith.
“Well, in the spring there are buds on the trees,” the squirrel reflected; “and the birds’ nests have got eggs inside them. They are both very nice, though I like nuts better still. But, you see, buds and birds’ eggs don’t keep, and so”—
“Oh but, Mr. Squirrel,” cried Tommy Smith, “you surely don’t eat the eggs of the poor birds! Oh, I hope you don’t!” (You see he was not at all the same Tommy Smith now that he used to be, and he didn’t go birds’-nesting any more.)
The squirrel looked just a little bit ashamed. “I wouldn’t, you know,” he said, “if they didn’t make their nests in the trees.”
“Of course they make their nests in the trees!” said Tommy Smith indignantly. “They have just as much right to the trees as you have, and I think it is very wicked of you to eat their eggs.”
“Perhaps it is,” said the squirrel; “but, you see, I get so hungry, and fresh eggs are so nice. By the bye, on what tree did you say the woodpigeon was sitting? I think I will go there with you.”