Bushy caught sight of the boys coming toward the tree for their bags, and with a whisk and a scamper he was up the tree again and into his hole in no time.
“Dear, dear Bushy,” said his mother. “What a fright you gave us all. Just see those boys. There’s no telling what would have happened if they had seen you.”
Mr. Squirrel’s family watched the boys pick up their bags, throw them over their shoulders and go away.
“Why, Tom, look at your bag,” said one of the boys. “It has a hole in it. You must have lost ever so many nuts along the way.”
“A hole?” asked Tom in surprise, as he lifted the bag from his shoulder. “So it has—and a pretty big one, too. I wonder how it ever came there. It wasn’t there when I started.”
The boys were gone, and Mr. Squirrel’s family ventured out once more.
“It’s of no use, I fear,” began Mrs. Squirrel; “those boys were good workers and—dear me, here are nuts sprinkled all along the road. What does it mean?” asked Mrs. Squirrel.
“It is strange,” said Mr. Squirrel. “I really thought those boys had found them all, but perhaps boys’ eyes are not so sharp as we think.”
Bushy kept on gathering the nuts and smiling to himself. How sly he was. Not one of the family seemed to guess the truth. It was only when he and Frisky were going to bed that night that Frisky dared to whisper, “Bushy, did you put that hole in that bag?”