Chatterer actually shivered as he replied: “Yes, I saw him after you. It’s a wonder he didn’t get you. You’re lucky! I was lucky myself this morning, for a mink went right past where I was hiding. Life is nothing but one jump after another these days. It seems as if, when one has worked as hard as I did last fall to store up enough food to keep me all winter, I ought to be allowed to enjoy it in comfort.
“Those who sleep all winter, like Johnny Chuck, have a mighty easy time of it. They don’t know when they are well off. Still, I’d hate to miss all the excitement and fun of life. I would rather jump for my life twenty times a day as I have to, and know that I’m alive, than to be alive and not know it. See that dog down there? I hate dogs! I’m going to tell him so.”
Off raced Chatterer to bark and scold at a little black-and-white dog which paid no attention to him at all. The shadows were creeping through the trees, and Tommy began to think of his nest. He looked once more at Chatterer, who was racing along the top of the old wall scolding at the dog. Suddenly what seemed like merely a darker shadow swept over Chatterer, and, when it had passed, he had vanished. For once, that fatal once, he had been careless. Hooty the Owl had caught him. Tommy shivered. He was frightened and cold. He would get to his nest as quickly as he could. He leaped down to a great gray stone, and—behold, he wasn’t a squirrel at all! He was just a boy sitting on a big stone, with a heap of Christmas greens at his feet.
He shivered, for he was cold. Then he jumped up and stamped his feet and threshed his arms. A million diamond points glittered in the white meadows where the snow crystals splintered the sunbeams. From the Old Orchard sounded the sharp scolding chirr and cough of Chatterer the Red Squirrel.
Tommy listened and slowly a smile widened. “Hooty didn’t get you after all!” he muttered. Then in a minute he added: “I’m glad of it. And you haven’t anything more to fear from me. You won’t believe it, but you haven’t. You may be mischievous, but I guess you have troubles enough without me adding to them. Oh, but I’m glad I’m not a squirrel! Being a boy’s good enough for me, ’specially ’long ’bout Christmas time. I guess Sis will be tickled with these greens. But it’s queer what happens when I sit down on this old rock!”
He frowned at it as if he couldn’t understand it at all. Then he gathered up his load of greens, and, with the merriest of whistles, trudged homeward. And to this day Chatterer the Red Squirrel cannot understand how it came about that from that Christmas he and Tommy became fast friends. But they did.
Perhaps the wishing-stone could tell if it would.
CHAPTER THREE
THE PLEASURES AND TROUBLES OF BOBBY COON
Tommy was trudging down to the corn-field, and his freckled face was rather sober. At least it was sober for him, considering why he was on his way to the corn-field. It wasn’t to work. If it had been, his sober look would have been quite easy to understand. The fact is, Tommy was going on an errand that once would have filled him with joy and sent him whistling all the way.