“Oh, Chummy,” I said, standing with my tailless back against the tree trunk, “they won’t kill him, will they?”
“I don’t know,” he said gravely. “I can’t
tell what they were told to do, but I guess that they are going to drive him up to North Hill and let him plead his own case before the Big Red Squirrel.”
I shuddered. This was very painful to me, and I wished I had said nothing about my adventure.
“I know what is passing in your canary mind,” said Chummy, “and, Dicky-Dick, do not be troubled. Squirrie had to be dealt with. Your affair only hurried things a little—see, here he comes. They have had a tussle with him. There is blood on one ear.”
Suddenly we heard voices below us on the sidewalk. “Oh the darling little squirrie babies, taking a walk in the sunshine!” and, looking down, we saw Sammy-Sam and his sister Lucy-Loo standing with their fresh young faces turned up to us.
Chummy, who was very fond of children, said softly, “Bless their little hearts, how they misunderstand birds and beasts! Those two serious old squirrels taking a scamp off, perhaps to bite him to death, they think is a bit of fun.”
“What dreadful faces he is making!” I said.
Squirrie, seeing all the birds assembled to stare at him, was in such a fury that he looked as if he would like to kill us all. Every few minutes he halted and tried to run back to his hole.
Whenever he did this, the two old ones closed in on him, and urged him on. They went leaping from branch to branch, till we lost sight of them up the old elm-shaded street.