Killer climbs the big hickory tree after Chatter Squirrel.
But high up in that hickory is where Chatter Squirrel made his winter nest of leaves, all woven together and neatly tucked in around the edges. It’s the best place in the world to hide because it looks like an old crow’s nest that the leaves have blown into.
Chatter wasn’t asleep. The Bad Little Owls had wakened him and Killer splashing in the pond had kept him awake.
“Here,” thought Chatter, who’s the most curious somebody on toepads, “something’s going on. I guess I’ll stretch my legs. It isn’t so very cold. I’d kind of like to know how long I’ve been asleep—it must be more’n a week.” So out popped his head.
Scritchy, scritchy came claws up his very own tree. Chatter pricked his ears. Then he squirmed far enough out of his front door so he could look down on—the big bulging whiskers of Killer the Weasel. Hm! You ought to have heard Chatter Squirrel. The little owls weren’t in it at all when he began screeching!
CHAPTER VIII
KILLER FINALLY REACHES MOUSE-HEAVEN
Chatter Squirrel scrambled up to the very tippest twig of his tree and there he hung while he told Killer all about himself. “Slit-throat!” and “Furred-snake!” and “Mud-belly!” were about the only things I dare to repeat. And all the time he kept rocking that springy treetop until Killer was fairly seasick.
Did Tommy Peele and Louie Thomson hear him? You know they did. The Hop-toad didn’t try to tell them about Killer because they didn’t talk his language. Chatter didn’t try either. He was just speaking out his mind and he didn’t care who happened to be listening. All the same, those two little boys didn’t have to know squirrel talk to understand.
But it wasn’t a safe thing for Chatter to do. He made Killer so terribly angry that he forgot to be scared and he forgot to be hungry and he forgot to be seasick—all he wanted was to hush up that squirrel. Up he came, foot over paw.