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Slicko, the Jumping Squirrel

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<h2>CHAPTER XII SLICKO FINDS HER NEST</h2> Scampering softly over the oilcloth of the kitchen floor, Slicko came close to the man. Slicko thought it was Bob’s papa, but it was not. I’ll soon tell you who the man was. “I do hope he has some sugar for me,” thought Slicko, for sometimes Bob’s papa would play at tricks and games with the little squirrel, and do just as Bob did—hide things in his pocket. Slicko was almost at the man’s leg. Her little claws made a patter-patter-pat sound on the floor oilcloth. The man heard it, and started. “A rat!” he cried. “I don’t like rats!” “The idea of calling me a rat!” thought Slicko. “I’ll soon show you who I am, Mr. Bob’s papa.” The next moment Slicko scrambled up the man’s leg, sticking her claws in the soft cloth of his trousers. “Get away from me! Get away from me!” the man cried, very much excited, and he struck at Slicko. “Get off me!” and the man was[118] fairly screaming now. “Get away! I hate rats! I’m afraid of ’em!” “Why, he’s worse than Tum Tum, the elephant,” said Slicko to herself. “But maybe he’s only fooling. I’ll climb up on his shoulder and sit there. Then maybe he’ll give me something to eat.” Quickly Slicko scrambled up to the man’s shoulder. She put her soft, cold nose on his neck. “Oh! Oh! Go away! A rat! It’ll bite me!” cried the man. He leaped aside and with his hand brushed Slicko away. She fell on the kitchen table. And then, all of a sudden the whole house was filled with light. Slicko sat up on the table in time to see the man give a jump through the window, while from his pocket fell a shower of knives and forks and spoons. For the man was a burglar—a thief—and he had come in the night to rob. Out of the window he jumped. Slicko could see him very well, for the electric lights were turned on now. Up stairs Bob’s papa had heard the burglar cry out, and he had switched on the lights. “What a funny man,” thought Slicko of the burglar, “to jump out of the window as I did. I wonder why he is running away.” [119] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_p119.jpg" width-obs="358" height-obs="600" alt="" title="" /> <div class="caption">Slicko sat up on the table in time to see the man give a jump through the window.</div> </div> [120- 121] Slicko saw a pan of water on the floor. She scrambled down and took a long drink, for she was quite thirsty. But she was not at all afraid. “I wish that man had let me sit on his shoulder,” she said to herself. “He might have given me a nut, or a piece of sugar. And he called me a rat—I don’t like that.” After getting her drink, Slicko sat up on the table again, and waited. She heard voices talking, and people coming down stairs. Bob and his father came into the kitchen. “Oh, look! There’s my squirrel Slicko!” cried Bob. “She’s come back!” “Chatter! Chatter! Chat-chat-chatter-r-r-r-r!” chirped Slicko. “Of course I’m your little pet squirrel come back again. I’m sorry I ran away.” Only, of course, Bob did not understand this. “What has happened?” asked the voice of Bob’s mother. “Slicko has come back,” said Bob. “Is that all?” “No, something else happened,” said Bob’s father, “and I guess we have Slicko to thank that our house was not robbed.” “Our house robbed! What do you mean?” “Why the kitchen window has been broken open, and here is some of our silver scattered[122] about,” said Bob’s father. “I heard a man yell something about a rat, and I turned on the lights. He must have been a burglar, but he got away.” “What frightened him?” asked Bob. By this time Slicko was sitting on Bob’s shoulder, eating a lump of sugar he had gotten for her from the pantry. “I think Slicko, your squirrel, frightened him,” said the boy’s father. “That must have been it. The burglar came in here to rob us. In the night Slicko came back, somehow, and probably she tried to make friends with him, as she does with you, not knowing who he was. The man must have thought Slicko was a rat, and, being afraid, he ran off. Slicko saved us from being robbed, for see, the man dropped most of the things he took. Your squirrel is very smart, Bob. She scared away the thief.” “She is a good little squirrel,” said Bob. “I am glad she came back to me.” Slicko was put back into her cage for the rest of the night. She was glad she had come back to Bob. Everybody went to bed. The next day Slicko did her tricks again, and learned some new ones. She had many nuts and apples to eat. Still Slicko was not happy. The weather grew warmer. It was very warm in the house,[123] but Slicko was not allowed to be out of her cage. “I don’t want her to run away again,” said Bob. Poor Slicko was now very mournful. As the warm days came, she wanted to be free to run in the shady woods. She would rather have sat swinging on the branch of a tree, than whirl around in the wire wheel of her cage. “Bob,” said the boy’s father to him one day, “don’t you think your squirrel would be happier if you let it go out in the woods to live?” “What! Let my pet squirrel go?” asked Bob, in surprise. “Yes,” answered his father. “Slicko is not happy in her cage now. She might have been, in the winter, but now it is summer, and she ought to be out in the open. I think she wants to go.” Oh, how much Slicko hoped she could go! Her little heart beat very fast, as she looked through the bars of her cage. “Let Slicko go!” said Bob softly. “Oh, I can’t do that!” “Slicko did us a very great favor,” said Bob’s father. “She frightened away the burglar. I think, as a reward, you ought to let her go, Bob.” Bob said nothing for a long while. Then he spoke softly. [124] “Very well, father,” he said. “I’ll let Slicko go free!” Bob took the cage, with his pet in it, to the edge of the woods. He opened the little wire door. “You may go, Slicko,” said Bob. “Go off to the woods where you belong. I’ll set you free, but I hope you will come and see me, sometime.” “Chatter-chatter-chatter-r-r-r-r-r!” chirped Slicko. She sprang out of the cage, and stood upright for a moment on the ground. Then, she scrambled up on Bob’s shoulder and put her cold, soft nose on his cheek. That was her way of kissing him good-bye. Down scrambled Slicko, and off to the woods she ran. “Good-bye, Slicko, my little jumping squirrel!” called Bob, as he went back to the house with the empty cage. And yet, after all, he felt happy that he had let Slicko go. Slicko ran on and on through the woods. All that day she wandered about. She found a spring and got a drink of water, and in a field she found an early apple tree, and ate an apple. The next day, as Slicko was jumping through the woods, she came to a tree that she was sure she had seen before. Half way up was a big lump, on which she knew she had often sat. A[125] little farther up was a broken limb, and, close to that limb was a hole. “Why, that’s the nest where I used to live,” said Slicko. “I wonder if papa and mamma, and Chatter and Fluffy and Nutto have come back! I’m going up to see.” Up the tree scrambled Slicko. She looked in her old nest. Something inside it moved. “Hello!” said Slicko. “Why—why—why it’s Slicko—come back!” cried Chatter. “Papa—Mamma! Nutto, Fluffy! Come here. Slicko has come back!” Out of the nest rushed all the Squirrel family. They sat on their tails and looked at Slicko. “My! How she has grown!” cried her mother, patting Slicko with her paws. “How long have you been here?” asked Slicko. “That time you sent me to Aunt Whitey’s, I couldn’t find her—she wasn’t home.” “No, Slicko,” said her papa, “your aunt had hurriedly moved to another nest. We didn’t know it when we sent you there. And, not long ago, we all came back here. For it is safe now. The hunter-man and his dog have gone from these woods.” “And so we are all together again,” said Fluffy. “I’m glad.” “So am I!” exclaimed Slicko. “But where have you been—and what happened[126] to you?” asked the mamma squirrel. “Oh, I have had so many adventures!” cried Slicko. “I can jump through paper hoops, I can crawl in Bob’s pocket and get sugar, and I scared away a burglar!” “My, you did have some adventures,” said Mrs. Squirrel. “But come in now, and have some dinner.” And so that was the end of Slicko’s adventures for a while. She got safely back to her nest, and she lived there with her father and mother, and sister and brothers, for many years. Sometimes she would meet Squinty, the comical pig, or Mappo, the merry monkey. And that reminds me. I have some stories to tell you about him. But I shall have to put them in another book. It will be named “Mappo, the Merry Monkey,” and in it you may read all about his many adventures. “Are you going to run away again, Slicko?” asked Nutto, one day about a week after his sister came back. “No, I am only going to run up to the top of this tree, and down again,” said the little squirrel, and she did. THE END <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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