In the morning, after her breakfast, having had a drink and washed at the spring, Slicko said:
“I think I had better go off in the woods nutting, to-day. I shall need many nuts to eat, if I have to stay here all winter, and I had better begin to gather them now before they are all gone.”
Slicko knew, as do all squirrels, the best places in the woods to look for nuts. Soon the little girl squirrel had found many chestnuts, acorns, hickory nuts and beech nuts. These she carried, a few at a time, up to her aunt’s nest-house.
“If Aunt Whitey should come back, there would be enough for her and me too,” thought Slicko.
The store-house of the nest was almost full of nuts, but still Slicko was not satisfied.
“I must get more,” she said to herself, “for we may have a long winter, with much snow.” Well, Slicko knew how hard the winter was for squirrels, and all animals.
So the next day Slicko went off nutting again. She had not gone very far through the woods before she came to a little grassy place, and there, in the middle of it, Slicko saw a nice pile of nuts, all gathered up, ready to be taken away.
“Oh, that’s just fine!” thought Slicko to herself. “The nuts are all in a nice heap, and I don’t have to pick them up, one by one, and carry them home. I can take a whole paw full at once.”
Now Slicko was a wise little squirrel in some ways. But she had many things yet to learn. She did not stop to think that nuts in the woods never heap themselves up in a pile without some animal or some person doing it. Slicko thought the nuts were put there just for her. But it was all a trick, as you shall soon see.
Of course Slicko did not at once jump down to get the nuts. She knew enough not to do that, for she had often been told some animal might be waiting to grab her. So she looked all around, and, seeing nothing, down she scrambled.