THE TREE-MEN
And all the squirrels heard them coming, and they stopped eating chestnuts, and each squirrel scurried to a tree, with his chestnut in his mouth, and he scrambled up the tree, on the opposite side of the trunk from the men, so that the men couldn't see him.
They scrambled up the trunks very fast, until they came to a branch; and each squirrel sat on his branch, next to the trunk, and made a sort of a scolding, barking noise, and every time he made the noise his tail gave a queer little jerk.
David was watching them, and he heard their noises, and he couldn't help laughing to see their tails jerk.
And then the men were there, and they saw David laughing.
"Hello," said one of the men. "What's so funny?"
"I was laughing at the squirrels," David said; "they make their tails go."
"Yes," said the man, "I hear them, and I see some of them. How they do scold! But we wouldn't hurt them."
He put his cans down, and he leaned his pole against a tree, and he stood the ladder against the tree.
David looked in the cans. There wasn't anything in the little can, but the big can was full of something that was about as thick as molasses and almost as black as ink, only it was brownish black.