A FEAST AT LAST
To Dickie Deer Mouse, waiting impatiently for Mr. Pine Finch to dropanother bud out of the tree-top, it began to seem as if his good luckwere short lived. Could it be possible that Mr. Pine Finch was socareful that he lost a bud only once in a long time--perhaps only once ayear?
But as Dickie Deer Mouse wondered, a small shower of buds came rattlingdown upon the snow-crust. And Dickie Deer Mouse snatched them up, everyone, and ate them hungrily.
In a little while he felt so much better that he called out to Mr. PineFinch:
"Shake a lot of 'em down--there's a good fellow!"
Mr. Pine Finch fluttered to a perch on a limb and looked down in greatsurprise.
"Did you speak?" he inquired.
"Yes!" Dickie Deer Mouse piped up. "You know, I can climb a tree; but Ican't crawl out to the tips of the branches, because I'm too heavy. Soyou'll oblige me if you'll drop a few dozen more of those buds."
The request surprised Mr. Pine Finch. His face told that much.
"Buds!" he exclaimed. "Why do you want buds?"
"I eat them--when I can get them," Dickie Deer Mouse informed him.
The streaked gentleman in the tree looked quite blank.
"What a strange thing to do!" he cried through his nose--or so itseemed.
"Strange!" Dickie Deer Mouse echoed. "Why, you've just been eating someyourself!" And he couldn't help thinking that Mr. Pine Finch was evenodder than he sounded.
"That's so," Mr. Pine Finch admitted. "In fact, I may say that I'm very,very fond of tree-buds. But I'm a bird. And of course everybody knowsthat you're a rodent."
"I'm hungry, anyway," Dickie Deer Mouse retorted. He didn't mind Mr.Finch's calling him names, if only he would drop some more buds.
"You're hungry, eh?" the odd gentleman in the tree replied. "Thatreminds me that I'm still hungry myself. So I can't stop to talk withyou any longer just now."
Then he turned himself upside down, as he picked out a promisingcluster of buds. And before he had finished his breakfast he had droppedso many buds that Dickie Deer Mouse called to him and thanked him forhis kindness.
"What! Are you still there?" Mr. Pine Finch exclaimed, gazing down atDickie as if he were greatly surprised to see him lingering beneath thetree. "I must go away now," Mr. Pine Finch added. "But I'll make thisremark before I leave: If you have anything more to say to me, you canfind me here almost any morning soon after daybreak." And then he flewoff.
Dickie Deer Mouse told himself that he was in luck. By coming to thatspot early every day he could pick up buds enough--dropped carelessly byMr. Pine Finch--to feed himself until spring came and the snow meltedand uncovered the ground, where he knew he could find food.
So he went home and slept as he had not slept for weeks. And the nextmorning, when he went back to the tree where he had found Mr. PineFinch, his eighteen cousins followed him. For Dickie Deer Mouse toldthem of his good fortune and asked them to share it with him.
As for Mr. Pine Finch, he looked queerer than ever when he saw thatDickie had brought eighteen of his relations with him. However, he badethem all good morning. And he seemed to be even clumsier than he hadbeen the day before. He dropped an enormous number of buds; so many, infact, that Dickie Deer Mouse wondered how Mr. Pine Finch managed to getenough breakfast for himself.
Perhaps that odd gentleman knew what he was about. To tell the truth,he had noticed the day before that Dickie Deer Mouse looked thin andhungry. His coat, too, struck Mr. Pine Finch as being somewhat shabby.But he said nothing to show Dickie Deer Mouse that he knew there wasanything wrong. And if he dropped tree-buds on purpose, he never letanyone know it.
Anyhow, Mr. Pine Finch did not fail to appear at that tree a singlemorning during the rest of the winter. Before spring came the Deer Mousefamily had long since decided that he was the best friend they had inall Pleasant Valley. And they all agreed that his voice, although he didtalk through his nose, was the pleasantest they had ever heard.
At last the breakfast parties beneath Mr. Pine Finch's favorite treecame to an end. The snow vanished. Warm weather made the undergroundchamber in Farmer Green's pasture seem crowded and stuffy. And DickieDeer Mouse said farewell to his eighteen cousins, because he wanted tolook for a pleasant place in which to spend the summer.
THE END.
* * * * * * * * * * * *