The Tale of Frisky Squirrel Part 6

Then the horses began to walk. Now, probably you wouldn't think there was anything strange about that. But there was. The odd thing about that was that although the horses walked, they didn't get anywhere at all. So far as Frisky Squirrel could see, they just walked and walked, and that was all there was to it. After they had walked for a long time they still stayed right in the same place, tied fast to the wooden bar in front of them.

Now, when the horses were walking, the other wagon began to set up a great noise. It reminded Frisky of the time the gristmill began to grind, when he thought the world was coming to an end. Those queer wheels on the wagon began to turn, too. But Frisky didn't pay much attention to them. What caught his eye and kept him puzzling was those two horses, always walking, but never going anywhere.

Frisky Squirrel stayed in his tree as long as he could, until at last he simply had to hurry home and beg his mother to come over to the field with him.

As it happened, Mrs. Squirrel was not very busy that day, so she dropped her knitting, or whatever it was that she was doing, and pretty soon she and Frisky were up in the tree that he had climbed before.

"Oh! they're threshing!" Mrs. Squirrel said, after she had taken one good look at what was going on. "They're threshing out the wheat-kernels, so the miller can grind them into flour."

"But those horses--" said Frisky. "Why is it that they don't walk right against that bar, and break it, and tumble off onto the ground?"

"That's a horse-power," Mrs. Squirrel explained. "The path the horses are treading on moves, and that's why they stay right in the same place. The path moves 'round and 'round all the time, like a broad chain. That's what makes the wheels turn on the threshing-machine."

"It must be fun," said Frisky Squirrel. "I wish I could be a horse, and make that horse-power turn like that."

"Nonsense!" said his mother. "You'd soon grow tired of it."

But Frisky Squirrel knew better.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Caught in the attic]

XIX

Frisky's Prison

Frisky Squirrel simply couldn't keep away from the field where the wheat was being threshed. He was on hand before the men came in the morning, and he was the last to leave the place at night. He ate all his meals right on the spot, and went home only to sleep.

Now, it was not long before Johnnie Green spied Frisky Squirrel loitering about the field. And he made up his mind that that young squirrel was altogether too bold. So Johnnie Green rigged up a trap, which he made from an old box, a few sticks, and a bit of string. And one noon, while the men were eating their lunch under some trees a little way from the threshing-machine, Frisky Squirrel was just reckless enough to steal up and try to get his luncheon too, by eating some of the wheat-kernels. He noticed a tempting little heap of kernels, right beside a little box. And he had just stopped to eat them when all at once the box toppled over on him, and there he was--caught!

When Johnnie Green discovered that he had captured that young squirrel he was just as glad as Frisky was sorry and frightened. That, you see, is just the difference between _catching_ and _being caught_. It makes a great difference whether you are outside the trap, or in it. And Frisky Squirrel was in it. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get away.

He made up his mind that if anybody tried to lift him out of the box he would bite him. But Johnnie Green had caught squirrels before. He pulled on a pair of heavy gloves, and all Frisky's biting did no good--or harm--at all.

When Johnnie reached home he put his prize into a neat little wire cage. As soon as Frisky found himself inside it he looked all around, to see if there wasn't some opening big enough to squeeze through. And sure enough! there was a little door. And in a twinkling Frisky had popped himself through it and had started to run.

He ran and ran. But strange to say, all his running took him nowhere at all. At first he couldn't discover what was the matter. But after a while he saw that he was inside a broad wheel, made of wire. And when he ran the wheel simply spun 'round and 'round.

He stopped running then. For he thought of the horses that made the horse-power go. He was in just the same fix that they were in. He could run as fast as he pleased, but he would still stay right there inside the wheel.

Poor Frisky Squirrel crept back into his cage. He remembered what his mother had said, when he wished he could be a horse, and make the tread-mill go. "You'd soon grow tired of it," she had told him.

At the time, Frisky hadn't believed her. But now he knew that his mother was wiser than he was. And he wondered if he was ever going to see her again.

XX

Johnnie Green Forgets Something

Although Johnnie Green took good care of Frisky Squirrel, that once lively young chap did not like his new home in the wire cage at all.

His young master gave him plenty to eat--nuts and grain--all the things that Frisky had always liked before. But now nothing tasted the same.

Frisky never felt really hungry. He just sat in his cage and moped and sulked.

Once in a great while he would go out into his wheel, and run and run until he was so tired that he was ready to drop. Whenever Johnnie Green saw him running inside the wheel that young man would laugh aloud--he was so pleased.

But nothing ever pleased Frisky Squirrel any more. He grew peevish and cross and sulky. Being cooped up in that little wire prison day after day made an entirely different squirrel of him. He longed to be free once more--free to scamper through the tree-tops, and along the stone-walls and the rail-fences. And at night he dreamed of hunting for beechnuts, and chestnuts, and hickorynuts, on which he would feast to his heart's content--in his dreams. But in the daytime, when his young master put some of those very same nuts into his cage, Frisky would hardly touch them. He lost his plumpness. His smooth coat grew rough.

And his tail--that beautiful tail that Jimmy Rabbit had tried to cut off--alas! it was no longer beautiful. It was thin and ragged-looking.

At last Johnnie Green began to be worried about his pet squirrel. And one day when Frisky refused to eat a single nut Johnnie Green thought that he must be really ill. So he opened the door of the cage, which he always kept carefully fastened, and forgetting all about his thick gloves he put his hand inside the little wire house, picked Frisky up by the back of his neck, just as if he were a kitten, and lifted him out of his prison.

Johnnie wanted to see if he could find out what was the trouble with the little fellow. He thought that perhaps he had a bad tooth, which prevented his eating. And Johnnie tried to look inside of Frisky's mouth.

At first Frisky kept perfectly still. He could hardly believe that he was outside that horrid, cramped cage. But it was true! And when Johnnie Green began to poke at his mouth with a bare finger Frisky Squirrel thought that it was high time for him to do something.

So he did it. He didn't wait another second. Quick as a flash he sank his sharp teeth into Johnnie Green's finger.

Poor Johnnie Green! He gave such a yell that you could have heard him far away on the other side of Swift River. That was the first thing he did. And the next thing that Johnnie did was to drop Frisky right on the ground.

That was exactly what Frisky wanted. He no sooner touched the ground than he was away like a shot. It was not at all like running inside the wheel. Every leap carried him further away from Farmer Green's house.

And he had crossed the road and disappeared behind the stone-wall before Johnnie Green knew what had happened.

For several days after that Johnnie Green had to keep his finger bound up in a bandage. And he felt very sad at losing his pet squirrel.

But Frisky Squirrel was not sad at all. And neither was his mother. At first, when Frisky tumbled inside her house she hardly knew him. For a long time she had almost stopped believing he would ever come home again. And now that he had come he was so changed that she could scarcely believe it was he.

The first thing that Mrs. Squirrel did was to set before Frisky some choice seeds which she had gathered that very day. And Frisky ate every one of them. You see, he had found his appet.i.te again.

For several days after that Frisky Squirrel did very little except eat. And it was surprising--the way he began to grow fat. His sides soon stuck out more than they ever had before, and his coat began to grow sleek and shiny. And as for his tail--though it took longer for _that_ to look beautiful again, in the course of time it became just as thick and handsome as ever. Mrs. Squirrel was very glad of that.

For Frisky reminded her of his father once more.

XXI

That Disagreeable Freddie Weasel

Almost everybody liked Frisky Squirrel, he was such a happy little fellow. But there were a few of the forest-people with whom Frisky never was able to make friends. _They_ were the disagreeable, selfish kind, who never liked anyone except themselves.

Freddie Weasel was one of the few with whom Frisky Squirrel never could have a good time. Frisky often tried to play with him. But their games always ended in trouble; and I must say that it was not Frisky's fault.