Part 15 (1/2)
”Chipper, chipper, chipper! Chat! Chat! Whir-r-r-r-r-!” went the noise.
Squinty looked up in the tree, and there he saw a lovely little girl squirrel, frisking about on the branches. Then Squinty was no longer afraid. Out of the leaves he jumped, giving a squeal and a grunt which meant:
”Oh, how do you do? I am glad to see you. My name is Squinty. What is your name?”
”My name is Slicko,” answered the lively little girl squirrel, as she jumped about. ”Come on and play!”
Squinty felt very happy then.
CHAPTER XI
SQUINTY AND THE MERRY MONKEY
”Where do you live, Squinty?” asked Slicko, the jumping squirrel, as she skipped from one tree branch to another, and so reached the ground near the comical little pig.
”Oh, I live in a pen,” answered Squinty, ”but I'm not there now.”
”No, I see you are not,” spoke Slicko, with a laugh, which showed her sharp, white teeth. ”But what are you doing so far away from your pen?
Or, perhaps it is close by, though I never saw you in these woods before,” she went on, looking around as if she might see the pig pen under one of the trees.
”No, I have never been here before,” Squinty answered. ”My pen is far from here. My master is a boy who taught me to do tricks, such as jumping rope, but I ran away and had a balloon ride.”
”What's a balloon?” asked Slicko, as she combed out her tail with a chestnut burr. Squirrels always use chestnut burrs for combs.
”A balloon is something that goes up in the air,” answered Squinty, ”and it has bags of sand in it.”
”Well, I can go up in the air, when I climb a tree,” went on Slicko, with a jolly laugh. ”Am I a balloon?”
”No, you are not,” said Squinty. ”A balloon is very different.”
”Well, I know where there is some sand,” spoke Slicko. ”I could get some of that and put it in leaf-bags. Would that make me a balloon?”
”Oh, no, of course not,” Squinty answered. ”You could never be a balloon. But if you know where there is some sand perhaps you know where there is some sour milk. I am very hungry.”
”I never heard of sour milk,” replied the girl squirrel. ”But I know where to find some nuts. Do you like hickory nuts?”
”I--I guess so,” answered Squinty, thinking, perhaps, they were like acorns. ”Please show me where there are some.”
”Come on!” chattered Slicko. She led the way through the woods, leaping from one tree branch to another over Squinty's head. The little pig ran along on the ground, through the dry leaves. Sometimes he went on four feet and sometimes he stood up straight on his hind feet.
”Can you do that?” he asked the squirrel. ”It is a trick the boy taught me.”
”Oh, yes, I can sit up on my hind legs, and eat a nut,” the squirrel girl said. ”But n.o.body taught me. I could always do it. I don't call that a trick.”
”Well, it is a trick for me,” said Squinty. ”But where are the hickory nuts you spoke of?”
”Right here,” answered Slicko, the jumping squirrel, hopping about as lively as a cricket, and she pointed to a pile of nuts in a hollow stump. Squinty tried to chew some, but, as soon as he took them in his mouth he cried out:
”Oh my! How hard the sh.e.l.ls are! This is worse than the sand! I can't chew hickory nuts! Have you no other kind?”