The blue jays were
busy in the fields of wheat; so were the red-winged blackbirds, and the
sparrows, and many other birds, great and small; field-mice in dozens were
cutting the straw with their sharp teeth, and carrying off the grain to
their nests; and as to the squirrels and chitmunks, there were scores of
them--black, red, and gray--filling their cheeks with the grain, and
laying it out on the rail fences and on the top of the stumps to dry,
before they carried it away to their storehouses. And many a battle the
red and the black squirrels had, and sometimes the gray joined with the
red, to beat the black ones off the ground.
Nimble-foot and his sister kept out of these quarrels as much as they
could; but once they got a severe beating from the red squirrels for not
helping them to drive off the saucy black ones, which would carry away the
little heaps of wheat, as soon as they were dry.
"We do not mean to trouble ourselves with laying up winter stores," said
Nimble one day to his red cousins; "don't you see Peter, the miller's man,
has got a great waggon and horses, and is carting wheat into the barn for
us?"
The red squirrel opened his round eyes very wide at this speech. "Why,
Cousin Nimble," he said, "you are not so foolish as to think the miller
is harvesting that grain for your use.
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