Part 6 (1/2)

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 thres.h.i.+ng!” Mrs. Squirrel said, after she had taken one good look at what was going on. ”They're thres.h.i.+ng 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 thres.h.i.+ng-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 thres.h.i.+ng-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