XII
WHERE SEEK-SEEK GOT HIS PRETTY COAT
Peter Rabbit never will forget the first time he saw Seek-Seek the Ground Squirrel, often wrongly called Gopher or Gopher Squirrel, but whose real name is Spermophile, which means seed eater. Peter won't forget that meeting, because of the funny mistake he made and the foolish feeling he had as a result of it. You see, Peter didn't know that there was such a person as Seek-Seek. He was hopping along across the Green Meadows in his usual happy-go-lucky way when, right in front of him, he saw what at first he took to be a stake, a small stake, driven in the ground. But as he drew nearer, it suddenly moved. It wasn't a stake at all, but a very lively small person in a striped coat who had been sitting up very straight and motionless.
"Hello, Striped Chipmunk! What are you doing way out here so far from the old stone wall?" exclaimed Peter.
The small person in the striped coat whirled and faced Peter with snapping eyes. "Don't call me Striped Chipmunk, and don't call me Gopher!" said he very fiercely for so small a person. "I am neither one. I am Seek-Seek the Ground Squirrel, and I'll thank you to call me by my own name. I am getting everlastingly tired of being called the names of other people."
Peter looked very foolish. "I beg your pardon," said he. "I do indeed. I'm sorry. Perhaps you don't know it, but you look very much like Striped Chipmunk, who is one of my best friends. You look so much like him that I thought you must be him. I wonder if you are related to him."
"Certainly I'm related to him, or he is related to me, whichever way you please to put it," snapped Seek-Seek. "We are cousins. But he is a Rock Squirrel, and I am a Ground Squirrel which is altogether different. You don't find me where there are rocks and stones in the way if I know it. Besides, if you used your eyes, you would see that we are not dressed alike either. Just because we both happen to wear stripes is no reason why we should be mistaken for each other."
Peter looked at Seek-Seek more closely than he had, and at once he made a discovery. "Why!" he exclaimed, "your coat has more stripes than Striped Chipmunk's has, hasn't it?"
"I should hope so," retorted Seek-Seek.