"Little Mr. Squirrel felt lonesome. He grew more lonesome every day. None of the other little people would have anything to do with him because they remembered how he had lived without working when he was the favorite of King Bear. The weather was cold, and it was hard work to find anything to eat. Mr. Squirrel was hungry all the time. He couldn't think of anything but his stomach and how empty it was. He grew thin and thinner.
"One cold day when the snow covered the earth, little Mr. Squirrel went without breakfast. Then he went without dinner. You see, he couldn't find so much as a pine-seed to eat. Late in the afternoon he crept into a hollow tree to get away from the cold, bitter wind. He was very tired and very cold and very, very hungry. Tears filled his eyes and ran over and dripped from his nose. He curled up on the leaves at the bottom of the hollow to try to go to sleep and forget. Under him was something hard. He twisted and turned, but he couldn't get in a comfortable position. Finally he looked to see what the trouble was caused by. What do you think he found? Six big, fat nuts! Yes, Sir, six big, fat nuts! Little Mr. Squirrel was so glad that he cried for very joy.
"When he had eaten two, he felt better and decided to keep the others for the next day. Then he began to wonder how those nuts happened to be in that hollow tree. He thought and thought, and at last he remembered how he had hidden six nuts in this very hollow a long time before, when he had had more than he knew what to do with. These were the very nuts, the present of old King Bear.
"Right then as he thought about it, little Mr. Squirrel had a bright idea. He made up his mind that thereafter he would stop his happy-go-lucky idleness, and the first time that ever he found plenty of food, he would fill that hollow tree just as full as he could pack it, and then if there should come a time when food was scarce, he would have plenty. And that is just what he did do. The next fall when nuts were plentiful, he worked from morning till night storing them away in the hollow tree, and all that winter he was happy and fat, for he had plenty to eat. He never had to beg of any one. He had learned to save.
"And ever since then the Squirrels have been among the wisest of all the little forest people and always the busiest.
"The Squirrel family long since learned
That things are best when duly earned;
That play and fun are found in work
By him who does not try to shirk.
"And that's all," finished Grandfather Frog.