SUSIE GOES TO A PARTY
Up and down the big oak tree scampered the squirrels, bringing nuts and acorns from hollows, where they had been hidden all winter.
"Hey, Bushytail!" cried the squirrel whom Susie knew, addressing another who was on the ground at the foot of the stump, "bring up a big leaf."
"What do you want with a big leaf?" inquired the squirrel who was called Bushytail.
"Susie Littletail is going to stay to the party," replied the squirrel who was giving it, "and I want the leaf for a plate for her. She will need a large one."
Up the old stump climbed Bushytail with the leaf in his mouth, and he put it in a vacant place. The stump was quite large enough for the squirrels and rabbit to move about upon and still leave room for the table to be set. Susie saw the squirrels placing nut meats on the different plates and putting oak-leaf tea into the acorn cups. Suddenly the squirrel whom Susie knew and whose name was Mrs. Lightfoot, exclaimed:
"There! I never thought of that!"
"Thought of what?" asked Susie.
"Why, we haven't anything that you like to eat. You don't care for nuts, do you?"
"Not very much," answered Susie, who wanted to be polite, yet she still wanted to tell the truth.
"I thought so," spoke Mrs. Lightfoot. "Whatever shall I do? I've asked you to the party and now there is nothing you like. It's too bad, for I want you to have a good time!"
"I—I could go to the cabbage-field store and get some leaves, and I could bring some carrots and eat them," suggested Susie.
"Yes, but it wouldn't be right to ask you to a party and then have you bring your own things to eat," objected Mrs. Lightfoot.
"That's what they do at surprise parties," went on Susie, who had heard Uncle Wiggily Longears tell of one he once attended. It was given by a chipmunk.
"Yes, but this isn't a surprise party," said Mrs. Lightfoot. "I don't know what to do."
"We can pretend it's a surprise party," went on Susie. "I know I was very much surprised when you asked me to come to it."
"Were you, indeed?" inquired the squirrel. "Then a surprise party it shall be. Listen!" she called to the other squirrels; "this is a surprise party for Susie Littletail."
"Humph! I don't call this a surprise," grumbled an old squirrel, whose tail had partly been shot off. But nobody minded him, as he was always grumbling. So Susie went and got some cabbage leaves and carrots, and brought them to the party. She had to eat them all alone, as the squirrels did not care much for such things. The only thing Susie could eat which the squirrels did was some ice cream, made with snow, maple syrup and hickory nuts ground up fine. This was very good.
Susie had a grand time at the party, and after the hickory-nut ice cream and other good things had been eaten, she and the squirrels played "Ring Around the Old Oak Stump," which is something like "London Bridge" and "Ring Around the Rosy" mixed up together. It was lots of fun, and Susie almost forgot to go to the cabbage-field store. But she did go there, though it was just about to be closed up, and when she got home with the cabbage leaves for supper, she told about the surprise party. Then Sammie wished he had gone to the store, instead of remaining at home to make a whistle out of a carrot.
"I never had anything nice like that happen to me," said Sammie, in just the least bit of a grumbly voice. And, what do you think? The very next day something happened to Sammie, only it wasn't very nice. He was out walking in a field, when he met a big cat.
"Where do you live?" asked the cat, in quite a friendly voice.
"Over there," said Sammie, pointing toward the burrow.
"Can you take me there?" asked the cat, and she wiggled her whiskers and licked her nose with her tongue, for she was hungry.
"Yes, I'll show you," agreed Sammie, and he led the cat toward the burrow. Now, he did not know any better, for he did not stop to think that cats will eat rabbits. And the cat was just thinking how easily she had provided a good dinner for herself, when Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, who was peeping out of the front door of the burrow, saw pussy. The muskrat knew at once that the cat had come to eat the little rabbits and the big ones, too, and the only reason she did not eat Sammie was because she wanted more of a meal. So the nurse showed her sharp teeth, and the cat ran away. But she knew where the burrow was, and this was a bad thing, for she might come back again in the night, when Sammie and Susie were asleep.
"We must move away from here at once," said Uncle Wiggily Longears, when he heard about the cat. "We must find a new burrow or make one. Sammie, you acted very wrongly, but you did not mean to. Now, you must help us pack up to move." And to-morrow night, if all goes well, I shall tell you what happened when the Littletail family went to their new home.