Johnnie Green Forgets Something
Although Johnnie Green took good care of Frisky Squirrel, that once lively young chap did not like his new home in the wire cage at all. His young master gave him plenty to eat--nuts and grain--all the things that Frisky had always liked before. But now nothing tasted the same. Frisky never felt really hungry. He just sat in his cage and moped and sulked.
Once in a great while he would go out into his wheel, and run and run until he was so tired that he was ready to drop. Whenever Johnnie Green saw him running inside the wheel that young man would laugh aloud--he was so pleased.
But nothing ever pleased Frisky Squirrel any more. He grew peevish and cross and sulky. Being cooped up in that little wire prison day after day made an entirely different squirrel of him. He longed to be free once more--free to scamper through the tree-tops, and along the stone-walls and the rail-fences. And at night he dreamed of hunting for beechnuts, and chestnuts, and hickorynuts, on which he would feast to his heart's content--in his dreams. But in the daytime, when his young master put some of those very same nuts into his cage, Frisky would hardly touch them. He lost his plumpness. His smooth coat grew rough. And his tail--that beautiful tail that Jimmy Rabbit had tried to cut off--alas! it was no longer beautiful. It was thin and ragged-looking.
At last Johnnie Green began to be worried about his pet squirrel. And one day when Frisky refused to eat a single nut Johnnie Green thought that he must be really ill. So he opened the door of the cage, which he always kept carefully fastened, and forgetting all about his thick gloves he put his hand inside the little wire house, picked Frisky up by the back of his neck, just as if he were a kitten, and lifted him out of his prison.
Johnnie wanted to see if he could find out what was the trouble with the little fellow. He thought that perhaps he had a bad tooth, which prevented his eating. And Johnnie tried to look inside of Frisky's mouth.
At first Frisky kept perfectly still. He could hardly believe that he was outside that horrid, cramped cage. But it was true! And when Johnnie Green began to poke at his mouth with a bare finger Frisky Squirrel thought that it was high time for him to do something.
So he did it. He didn't wait another second. Quick as a flash he sank his sharp teeth into Johnnie Green's finger.
Poor Johnnie Green! He gave such a yell that you could have heard him far away on the other side of Swift River. That was the first thing he did. And the next thing that Johnnie did was to drop Frisky right on the ground.
That was exactly what Frisky wanted. He no sooner touched the ground than he was away like a shot. It was not at all like running inside the wheel. Every leap carried him further away from Farmer Green's house. And he had crossed the road and disappeared behind the stone-wall before Johnnie Green knew what had happened.
For several days after that Johnnie Green had to keep his finger bound up in a bandage. And he felt very sad at losing his pet squirrel.
But Frisky Squirrel was not sad at all. And neither was his mother. At first, when Frisky tumbled inside her house she hardly knew him. For a long time she had almost stopped believing he would ever come home again. And now that he had come he was so changed that she could scarcely believe it was he.
The first thing that Mrs. Squirrel did was to set before Frisky some choice seeds which she had gathered that very day. And Frisky ate every one of them. You see, he had found his appetite again.
For several days after that Frisky Squirrel did very little except eat. And it was surprising--the way he began to grow fat. His sides soon stuck out more than they ever had before, and his coat began to grow sleek and shiny. And as for his tail--though it took longer for that to look beautiful again, in the course of time it became just as thick and handsome as ever. Mrs. Squirrel was very glad of that. For Frisky reminded her of his father once more.