“Sure ’tis a grand farm!” cried Mike as he saw the snug house in which he and his mother were to live. “’Tis a grand farm entirely. And would ye look at the river right next door! I can go swimmin’ in that and sail a boat.”
“’Tis no river, Mike, me boy,” said his mother. “That’s a canal, same as the one that runs near the big city where we come from, though I guess you were never over that far.”
“No,” said Mike, “I was not. A canal; eh? Sure it’s a funny thing. A river made by men,” and he sat down to look at it.
But there were many things to do on the Malony farm, and Mike and his mother were happy in doing them, for now they saw better times ahead of them.
“Sure this would be a fine place for Lightfoot,” said Mike as he sat on the steps one day and looked across the green fields. “He’d be fair wild with th’ delight of it here,” and his face was a bit sad as he thought of his lost pet.
It was about the time that the farm had been left to the widow and her son that Lightfoot met Slicko the jumping squirrel in the woods as I have told you.
“And so you were lonesome! And that’s the reason you awakened me by dropping a nut on my nose?” asked Lightfoot of Slicko.
“Yes,” was the answer. “And I guess you are glad it wasn’t Mappo, the merry monkey, who tried to wake you up that way.”
“Why?” asked Lightfoot.
“Because Mappo would likely have dropped a cocoanut on your nose, and that’s bigger and heavier than an acorn.”