Mother West Wind How Stories Read online

  VI

  HOW OLD MR. SQUIRREL BECAME THRIFTY

  Grandfather Frog sat on his big green lily-pad in the Smiling Pool andshook his head reprovingly at Peter Rabbit. Peter is such ahappy-go-lucky little fellow that he never thinks of anything but thegood time he can have in the present. He never looks ahead to thefuture. So of course Peter seldom worries. If the sun shines to-day,Peter takes it for granted that it will shine to-morrow; so he hops andskips and has a good time and just trusts to luck.

  Now Grandfather Frog is very old and very wise, and he doesn't believein luck. No, Sir, Grandfather Frog doesn't believe in luck.

  "Chug-a-rum!" says Grandfather Frog, "Luck never just _happens_. Whatpeople call bad luck is just the result of their own foolishness orcarelessness or both, and what people call good luck is just the resultof their own wisdom and carefulness and common sense."

  Peter Rabbit had been making fun of Happy Jack Squirrel because HappyJack said that he had too much to do to stop and play that morning. Hereit was summer, and winter was a long way off. What was summer for if notto play in and have a good time? Yet Happy Jack was already thinking ofwinter and was hunting for a new storehouse so as to have it ready whenthe time to fill it with nuts should come. It was much better to playand take sun-naps among the buttercups and daisies and just have a goodtime all day long.

  "Chug-a-rum!" said Grandfather Frog, "Did you ever hear how old Mr.Squirrel learned thrift?"

  "No," cried Peter Rabbit, stretching himself out in the soft grass onthe edge of the Smiling Pool. "Do tell us about it. Please do,Grandfather Frog!"

  You know Peter dearly loves a story.

  All the other little meadow and forest people who were about the SmilingPool joined Peter Rabbit in begging Grandfather Frog for the story, andafter they had teased for it a long time (Grandfather Frog dearly lovesto be teased), he cleared his throat and began.

  "Once upon a time when the world was young, in the days when old KingBear ruled in the Green Forest, everybody had to take King Bearpresents of things to eat. That was because he was king. You know kingsnever have to work like other people to get enough to eat; everybodybrings them a little of their best, and so kings have the best in theland without the trouble of working for it. It was just this way withold King Bear. That was before he grew so fat and lazy and selfish thatOld Mother Nature declared that he should be king no longer.

  "Now in those days lived old Mr. Squirrel, the grandfather a thousandtimes removed of Happy Jack Squirrel whom you all know. Of course, hewasn't old then. He was young and frisky, just like Happy Jack, and hewas a great favorite with old King Bear. He was a saucy fellow, was Mr.Squirrel, and he used to spend most of his time playing tricks on theother meadow and forest people. He even dared to play jokes on old KingBear. Sometimes old King Bear would lose his temper, and then Mr.Squirrel would whisk up in the top of a tall tree and keep out of sightuntil old King Bear had recovered his good nature.

  "Those were happy days, very happy days indeed, and old King Bear was avery wise ruler. There was plenty of everything to eat, and so nobodymissed the little they brought to old King Bear. Having so much broughtto him, he grew very particular. Yes, Sir, old King Bear grew veryparticular indeed. Some began to whisper behind his back that he wasfussy. He would pick out the very best of everything for himself andgive the rest to his family and special friends or else just let it goto waste.

  "Now old King Bear was very fond of lively little Mr. Squirrel, andoften he would give Mr. Squirrel some of the good things for which hehad no room in his own stomach. Mr. Squirrel was smart. He soon foundout that the more he amused old King Bear, the more of King Bear's goodthings he had. It was a lot easier to get his living this way than tohunt for his food as he always had in the past. Besides, it was a lotmore fun. So little Mr. Squirrel studied how to please old King Bear,and he grew fat on the good things which other people had earned.

  "One day old King Bear gave little Mr. Squirrel six big, fat nuts. Yousee, old King Bear didn't care for nuts himself, not the kind with thehard shells, anyway, so he really wasn't as generous as he seemed, whichis the way with a great many people. It is easy to give what you don'twant yourself. Little Mr. Squirrel bowed very low and thanked old KingBear in his best manner. He really didn't want those nuts, for hisstomach was full at the time, but it wouldn't do to refuse a gift fromthe king. So he took the nuts and pretended to be delighted with them.

  "'What shall I do with them?' said little Mr. Squirrel as soon as he wasalone. 'It won't do for me to leave them where old King Bear will findthem, for it might make him very angry.' At last he remembered a certainhollow tree. 'The very place!' cried little Mr. Squirrel. 'I'll dropthem in there, and no one will be any the wiser.'

  "No sooner thought of than it was done, and little Mr. Squirrel friskedaway in his usual happy-go-lucky fashion and forgot all about the nutsin the hollow tree. It wasn't very long after this that Old MotherNature began to hear complaints of old King Bear and his rule in theGreen Forest. He had grown fat and lazy, and all his relatives had grownfat and lazy because, you see, none of them had to work for the thingsthey ate. The little forest and meadow people were growing tired offeeding the Bear family. It was just at the beginning of winter when OldMother Nature came to see for herself what the trouble was. It didn'ttake her long to find out. No, Sir, it didn't take her long. You can'tfool Old Mother Nature, and it's of no use to try. She took one goodlook at old King Bear nodding in the cave where he used to sleep. He wasso fat he looked as if he would burst his skin.

  "Old Mother Nature frowned. 'You are such a lazy fellow that you shallbe king no longer. Instead, you shall sleep all winter and grow thin andthinner till you awake in the spring, and then you will have to huntfor your own food, for never again shall you live on the gifts ofothers,' said she.

  "All the little forest and meadow people who had been bringing tribute,that is things to eat, to old King Bear rejoiced that they need do so nolonger and went about their business. All of old King Bear's family,including his cousin Mr. Coon, had been put to sleep just like old KingBear himself. Yes, Sir, they were all asleep, fast asleep.

  "Little Mr. Squirrel felt lonesome. He grew more lonesome every day.None of the other little people would have anything to do with himbecause they remembered how he had lived without working when he was thefavorite of King Bear. The weather was cold, and it was hard work tofind anything to eat. Mr. Squirrel was hungry all the time. He couldn'tthink of anything but his stomach and how empty it was. He grew thin andthinner.

  "One cold day when the snow covered the earth, little Mr. Squirrel wentwithout breakfast. Then he went without dinner. You see, he couldn'tfind so much as a pine-seed to eat. Late in the afternoon he crept intoa hollow tree to get away from the cold, bitter wind. He was very tiredand very cold and very, very hungry. Tears filled his eyes and ran overand dripped from his nose. He curled up on the leaves at the bottom ofthe hollow to try to go to sleep and forget. Under him was somethinghard. He twisted and turned, but he couldn't get in a comfortableposition. Finally he looked to see what the trouble was caused by. Whatdo you think he found? Six big, fat nuts! Yes, Sir, six big, fat nuts!Little Mr. Squirrel was so glad that he cried for very joy.

  "When he had eaten two, he felt better and decided to keep the othersfor the next day. Then he began to wonder how those nuts happened to bein that hollow tree. He thought and thought, and at last he rememberedhow he had hidden six nuts in this very hollow a long time before, whenhe had had more than he knew what to do with. These were the very nuts,the present of old King Bear.

  "Right then as he thought about it, little Mr. Squirrel had a brightidea. He made up his mind that thereafter he would stop hishappy-go-lucky idleness, and the first time that ever he found plenty offood, he would fill that hollow tree just as full as he could pack it,and then if there should come a time when food was scarce, he wouldhave plenty. And that is just what he did do. The next fall when nutswe
re plentiful, he worked from morning till night storing them away inthe hollow tree, and all that winter he was happy and fat, for he hadplenty to eat. He never had to beg of any one. He had learned to save.

  "And ever since then the Squirrels have been among the wisest of all thelittle forest people and always the busiest.

  "The Squirrel family long since learned That things are best when duly earned; That play and fun are found in work By him who does not try to shirk.

  "And that's all," finished Grandfather Frog.

  "Thank you! Thank you, Grandfather Frog!" cried Peter Rabbit.

  VII

  HOW LIGHTFOOT THE DEER LEARNED TO JUMP