“I watched the soldier’s widow when she took the bottle of milk from the refrigerator and put it on the pantry shelf. I watched her when she poured some in a little pitcher and put it on the dining-room table. I still kept my eye on her when she went to the back door to speak to the vegetable man, but after that I watched Squirrie.
“The little beast was darting into the dining-room. He went straight for the milk pitcher and holding on the edge with his paws, he ran his head away down into it, to get a good long drink.
“I lighted on the window sill and gave a loud squawk. The soldier’s widow turned round, looked past me, and saw Squirrie with his head in the milk pitcher. She gave a loud and joyful squeal, dropped the cabbage she was holding
and ran in the room, just in time to see Squirrie with a very milky face darting out the other door to the front of the house.
“Oh, how happy she was! It had all come over her in a flash what a goose she had been not to have guessed it was a squirrel that was defrauding her. She ran up to the student’s room to tell him the good news, and he went to the window and shook his fist at Squirrie and called him the red plague.”
“What did Squirrie say?” I asked.
“Squirrie said, ‘I don’t care,’ and instead of hiding from them, as he had always done before, he came boldly out on a branch, and licked his milky paws. Then he moved six doors down the street to a house where two maiden ladies lived. They have gone away now, but they kept a small tea-room and sold cake and candy. Squirrie went creeping round them, and they thought it was cute to have a little pet, so they used to put nuts for him on their windows.”
“Didn’t they know what mischief he had done at the corner?” I asked.
“No—you young things don’t know how it is in a city. No one knows or cares who lives
near by. In the nice, kind country you know everyone for miles round. Well, Squirrie got so familiar with these ladies that he used to sleep in the house and tease the family cat. He didn’t do much mischief at first. He knew he was in a good place, but one day just before Easter, Satan entered into him, and he played the poor ladies a very scurvy trick.