"I'll never touch it!" said Chatterer fiercely.
Just then he hit something with his foot, and it rolled. He picked it up and then put it down again. It was a nut, a plump hickory nut. Two or three times he picked it up and put it down, and each time it was harder than before to put it down.
"I—I—I'd like to taste one more nut before I starve to death," muttered Chatterer, and almost without knowing it, he began to gnaw the hard shell. When that nut was finished, he found another; and when that was gone, still another. Then he just had to taste a grain of corn. The first thing Chatterer knew, the nuts and the corn were all gone, and his stomach was full. Somehow he felt ever so much better. He didn't feel like starving to death now.
"I—I believe I'll wait a bit and see what happens," said he to himself, "and while I'm waiting, I may as well be comfortable."
With that he began to carry the shavings and rags into the hollow stump and soon had as comfortable a bed as ever he had slept on. Chatterer had decided to live.
XV
FARMER BROWN'S BOY TRIES TO MAKE FRIENDS
Nobody lives who's wholly bad;
Some good you'll find in every heart.
Your enemies will be your friends.
If only you will do your part.
All his life Chatterer the Red Squirrel had looked on Farmer Brown's boy as his enemy, just as did all the other little people of the Green Meadows, the Green Forest, and the Smiling Pool. They feared him, and because they feared him, they hated him. So whenever he came near, they ran away. Now at first, Farmer Brown's boy used to run after them for just one thing—because he wanted to make friends with them, and he couldn't see how ever he was going to do it unless he caught them. After a while, when he found that he couldn't catch them by running after them, he made up his mind that they didn't want to be his friends, and so then he began to hunt them, because he thought it was fun to try to outwit them. Of course, when he began to do that, they hated him and feared him all the more. You see, they didn't understand that really he had one of the kindest hearts in the world; and he didn't understand that they hated him just because they didn't know him.