I'll See You in My Dreams

by William Campbell Gault

His wife appeared in the doorway. "Who in the world are you talking to?"

"Myself." He looked at her bleakly. "More quarreling about a job?"

"No." She came out onto the porch and settled in the chair beside him. "Ted, there's the squirrel. That's the one who's afflicted with—with voyeurism."

"Oh, Ann, for goodness sake."

"His nest is right up there, in the nutmeg tree. Ted, I want you to destroy it."

"Don't be childish."

"I'm not being childish. They eat young bark and buds and birds' eggs. They're evil things, Ted."

"I think they're cute."

"Cute. Without the tail, they're just another rat. How some people can eat them is beyond me."

The pinkness and the sluice and the three-armed man with the enormous chest seemed to swim, for a moment, in Ted's memory. Hamilton went scurrying up the nutmeg tree.