“Well,” the squirrel began, “it is very large; much larger than you would ever think, to look at me. I could get inside the cap you have on your head. But how large do you think the house I make, and go to sleep in, is?”
“Perhaps it is a little larger than my cap,” said Tommy Smith. He did not think it could be much larger.
“Why,” said the squirrel, “it is larger than you sometimes. You know those great heaps of hay that stand in the fields—haycocks I think they call them,—well, if you were to take my house to pieces, it would sometimes make a heap almost as big as one of them.”
“Would it, really?” said Tommy Smith. “But why is it so large?”
“You see,” said the squirrel, “if the walls were not nice and thick, they would not keep out the cold properly, and so I have to find a great deal of moss and grass, and a great many sticks and leaves, to make it with. Then I have to repair it every year—it would be too much trouble, you know, to build a new one,—and so it keeps on getting bigger, because of the fresh sticks and things I bring to it. That is why my house is so large.”
“And are you always quite comfortable inside it?” said Tommy Smith.
“Oh yes,” said the squirrel; “always comfortable, and always dry. I knit everything so closely together, that neither the rain nor the snow can get through.”
“I suppose your house has a door to get in and out by,” said Tommy Smith.
“It has two doors,” said the squirrel, “a large one and a small one. Why, what a question to ask! You will be asking if it has a roof to it next.”
“Has it a roof?” said Tommy Smith. (So, you see, the squirrel was quite right.)