For a few days after his visit to Mr. Crow's elm, Dickie Deer Mouse kept
watch carefully of Mr. Crow's comings and goings. And he decided at last
that the old gentleman liked his home too well to leave it.
But Dickie was not discouraged. He had no doubt that he could find some
other pleasant quarters in which to spend the summer--quarters that
would prove almost as airy, and perhaps more convenient--because they
were not so high.
For there was no denying that Mr. Crow's nest was a long, long way from
the ground.
So Dickie began to search for birds' nests. And for a time he had to
suffer a great deal of scolding by his feathered neighbors. It must be
confessed that they were none too fond of Dickie Deer Mouse. There was a
story of something he was said to have done one time--a tale about his
having driven a Robin family away from their nest, in order to live in
it himself.
That seems a strange deed on the part of anyone so gentle as Dickie Deer
Mouse. But old Mr. Crow always declared that it was true. And Solomon
Owl often remarked that he wished Dickie Deer Mouse would try to drive
_him_ away from his home in the hollow hemlock.
[Illustration: Dickie scampered through the woods with his friends]
But during his hunt for birds' nests Dickie Deer Mouse was careful to
keep away from Solomon Owl, and his cousin Simon Screecher, and all the
rest of the Owl family. He contented himself with hasty peeps into nests
built by such smaller folk as Blackbirds and Robins. And if it happened
that anybody was living in one of those nests, Dickie soon found it out.
For the angry owners were sure to fly at him with screams of rage, and
peck at his head as they darted past him.
It was really not worth while getting into a fight over a bird's nest,
when there was plenty of old ones in which nobody dwelt. To be sure,
many of them were almost ready to fall apart. But Dickie Deer Mouse
finally found one to his liking--a last year's bird's nest where two
Blackbirds had reared a promising family. They had not come back to
Pleasant Valley. And there was their house, almost as good as new, just
waiting for some one to move in and make himself at home.
Nobody objected when Dickie took the old nest for his home, though many
a bird in the neighborhood remarked in his hearing that _he_ would hate
to be too lazy to build a house for himself.
Dickie Deer Mouse was too mild and gentle-mannered to make any reply to
such rude speeches. Besides, he expected to make a good many changes in
the old nest before the place was exactly what he wanted.
"I don't understand," he said aloud to nobody in particular, "why most
birds don't know how a house should be built. Of all the birds in
Pleasant Valley the only good nest-builder I know is Long Bill Wren. He
must be a very sensible fellow, because he puts a roof on his house."
Now, Dickie Deer Mouse may--or may not--have known that some of his bird
neighbors were near at hand, watching him. Certainly they must have
heard what he said, for they began to scold at the top of their voices.
And one rude listener named Jasper Jay screamed with fine scorn:
"What do you know about building a nest?" And then he laughed harshly.
But Dickie Deer Mouse only looked very wise and said nothing.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
V