“Chatter! Chatter! Chat-chat-chatter-r-r-r-r!” chirped Slicko. “Of course I’m your little pet squirrel come back again. I’m sorry I ran away.” Only, of course, Bob did not understand this.
“What has happened?” asked the voice of Bob’s mother.
“Slicko has come back,” said Bob.
“Is that all?”
“No, something else happened,” said Bob’s father, “and I guess we have Slicko to thank that our house was not robbed.”
“Our house robbed! What do you mean?”
“Why the kitchen window has been broken open, and here is some of our silver scattered about,” said Bob’s father. “I heard a man yell something about a rat, and I turned on the lights. He must have been a burglar, but he got away.”
“What frightened him?” asked Bob. By this time Slicko was sitting on Bob’s shoulder, eating a lump of sugar he had gotten for her from the pantry.
“I think Slicko, your squirrel, frightened him,” said the boy’s father. “That must have been it. The burglar came in here to rob us. In the night Slicko came back, somehow, and probably she tried to make friends with him, as she does with you, not knowing who he was. The man must have thought Slicko was a rat, and, being afraid, he ran off. Slicko saved us from being robbed, for see, the man dropped most of the things he took. Your squirrel is very smart, Bob. She scared away the thief.”
“She is a good little squirrel,” said Bob. “I am glad she came back to me.”