Slicko, the Jumping Squirrel: Her Many Adventures

by Richard Barnum

Then, as she heard no fluttering of wings, which she would have heard had it been a big bird which had caught her, and, as she did not hear the hiss of an angry snake, she felt sure it was none of those dangers.

“But what can it be that has hold of my leg?” thought Slicko.

She looked down, and there, partly hidden under the grass and the pile of nuts, where Slicko had not seen it before, was a steel trap. And her leg was caught in that trap, between two pieces of steel, that pressed together as hard as the rubber rollers of the wringer press on the clothes on washday.

“Oh dear!” though Poor Slicko. “I am caught in a trap! Papa and mamma told me to be careful of traps, but I didn’t see this one. I guess I was thinking too much of the nuts. Oh dear! What shall I do? How can I get out?”

That is what Slicko thought as she lay there, her leg in the trap, hurting her very much. All animals, when they are caught in a trap, at once begin to think of how they can get out. Some think one way, and some another, but they all think, or else how could some of them get out the way they do? Of course I don’t mean to say that animals think just the way we do, any more than they talk the way we do. But they talk and think in a language of their own.

Slicko was not a very old squirrel, and this was the first time she had ever been in a trap. If she had been an older squirrel, she would not have gone near the pile of nuts, for an older squirrel would have been sure they were put there on purpose to fool some animal.

But Slicko did not think. That was why she was caught in the trap.

“Oh, I must get out!” chattered poor Slicko. “I must get away from here, or some one may come and catch me!”

Slicko tried to pull her leg out of the trap, but the strong spring of it held the steel jaws tightly together. Some animal traps have sharp teeth on the steel jaws that spring together, and they hurt very much. But this trap was not that kind, and Slicko was glad of it. So the only thing that happened to her leg was that it was badly pinched, and squeezed tightly.