“Nippy told her audience (which they had not known before) that they had always been abused and unhappy. She reminded them with great eloquence how the largest nuts were apt to fall to the lot of the male squirrels, who were usually up and at work early of mornings, while their wives slept; how fathers of families were apt to go sky-larking off into the woods, leaving their partners at home with nests full of little ones; how they came back late at night and disturbed the house; and many other things. So pathetic was the picture that, before the lecture ended, most of the company were in tears. The gentlemen, who had been sitting in distant trees meanwhile, trying to look as if they didn’t know that any thing was going on, but secretly wild with curiosity, were confounded when, at the end of the discourse, all the squirrelesses came trooping home slowly and sadly, with tails in their eyes, and not a skip or bound among them. That night nothing but sobs and recriminations were heard among the boughs. Even the royal oak caught the infection. The princes and princesses were disputing and scolding right and left; and nobody kept their good humor except the sensible old Queen, who had refused to attend the lecture.
“‘Shut up, and go to sleep!’ she exclaimed at last. ‘You are a parcel of nonsensical fools. Since I became a squirrel I never heard of any thing so ridiculous; and if I had my way, that Nippy Nutcracker should be made into a fricassee by noon to-morrow, before she has time to do more mischief.’
“But vainly did the royal dame utter her homely wisdom. Nippy, sporting in unfricasseed freedom, with the whole range of social abuses before her, was more than a match for the aged Queen, to whom nobody listened for a moment. The next week the lecture was ‘Repeated by Request.’ Others followed, of a still more dangerous character; such as, ‘Frisk in Fetters,’ and ‘Why are Incisors granted to Both Sexes?’ A dreadful little ballad was composed, and sung by the strong-minded, whose number became daily larger and more formidable. I remember only a fragment, but it gives an idea of the whole:—
‘Who would stay and mind her young,
Who would gladly hold her tongue,
Who before her lord be dumb,
Let her turn and flee.
‘Let her turn in cage of tin,
Clattering with revolving din;
Grazing fur and grazing skin,