Dickie Deer Mouse was busier than ever. When he wasn't looking for
food--and eating it when he had found it--he gathered cat-tail down in
Cedar Swamp.
If there was one thing that he liked in a house it was a soft bed. And
he knew that if the weather happened to be chilly now and then, he could
snuggle into the cat-tail down and sleep as comfortably as he pleased.
The swamp was none too near his new home; and he might have found moss
or shreds of bark near-by that would have served his purpose. But he
would rather have cat-tail down, even though he had to make a good many
trips back and forth before he finally lined the old bird's nest to his
liking.
Then, having finished his bed, he had to make a roof over it. So he
covered the top of his house with moss, leaving a hole right under the
eaves, for a doorway.
When Dickie's home was done he was so pleased with it that he asked all
his neighbors if they didn't like his "improvements," as he called the
additions he had made. And all his Deer Mouse relations told him that he
certainly had a fine place.
But none of the birds cared for it at all, except Long Bill Wren; and
even he remarked that the house would be better "if it was rounder."
As for Jasper Jay, he told Dickie Deer Mouse that, in his opinion, the
house was ruined.
"It's nothing but a trap," he declared. "And I'd hate to go to sleep
inside it."
His views, however, did not trouble Dickie Deer Mouse in the least. The
place suited him. And he was so happy in it that sometimes when the
weather was bad and he wasn't whisking about in the trees, or scurrying
around on the ground, he would stay inside his cozy home, with only his
head sticking out through the doorway, while his big, bright, bulging,
black eyes took in everything that happened in his dooryard.
Dickie Deer Mouse knew that one needed sharp eyes to spy him when he was
peeping from his house in that fashion. And often when somebody of whom
he was really afraid came wandering through the woods, Dickie would
keep quite still, while he watched the newcomer without being seen.
But with some of the wood folk he took no chances. Whenever he heard
Solomon Owl's rolling call, or his cousin Simon Screecher's quavering
whistle, Dickie Deer Mouse always pulled his head inside his house in a
hurry.
For they were usually on the lookout for him. And he knew it.
Of course, if they had been aware that Dickie Deer Mouse was hidden
inside his rebuilt, last year's bird's nest, either of them, with his
sharp claws, could easily have torn the moss roof off Dickie's home. But
luckily for Dickie, there were some things that they didn't know.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]