“And the nuts toasted on the end of a hat-pin—oh, we mustn’t lose one!” said Essie.
And full of glee, full of eager greed, too, if it must be told, they didn’t lose one.
Pincher hung the bag on his back, and carried the baskets, and the three hurried home together. Pincher took the nuts up and spread them out on the garret floor to dry. Ally and Essie fenced them off from other stores that might be poured out there later, with a dozen or so of old bricks that happened to be there, Pincher dragging up to one end the big hair trunk full of gold-laced soldier’s jackets; then the twins completed the barricade with a row of old school-books along the front.
The little girls stood up and viewed their possessions like two happy misers, and counted up the good things they would do with them like two great philanthropists—so many to stuff the next turkey for Diane, the cook, so many more for the minister’s wife, and a lot for the old woman in the hollow across the mountain.
Ally and Essie awoke the next morning to find all the lovely breezes and melting weather of yesterday had vanished in a fierce storm that was beating up from the coast, tossing the trees, and lashing the panes with rivers of rain and cold sleet.
Home never seemed any sweeter to the Children of the Valley than it did that morning as they basked in the warmth of the great fire roaring up the chimney, and rosy with well-being, planned out their play over their breakfast of dainty sausages, and buckwheat-cakes and maple-syrup.
It was while making sure of the very last drops of the sweetness on her plate, and looking up, startled by a fresh fury of the rain and sleet against the window-panes, that some sudden disturbing thought struck Essie.
Essie had remembered the little cub, and wondered if his mother had made him comfortable anywhere! And then, immediately, she saw in her mind’s eye a beautiful great squirrel scratching at the big heap of autumn leaves at the foot of his tree, and stopping, full of consternation, to find his winter’s store of food gone, with no dinner to-day—no dinner to-morrow—starvation afterwards! And all his family! Oh! And she had done it! She and Ally had done it! They had robbed him, they had left him nothing to eat all winter! She saw his angry surprise; she saw him scamper up the tree to tell his wife; she heard him chattering over his loss; she saw him sitting dejected and bewildered, not knowing which way to turn, and hungry! And she and Ally had had such a nice breakfast.
Then Essie began to sob; she slipped down and away from the table, and out of the room.
Ally followed her in amazement, calling and trying to overtake her, as she ran up-stairs and up-stairs to the garret itself, and threw herself, sobbing still, on the floor beside the nuts.