After his escape from Solomon Owl and Simon Screecher, Dickie Deer Mouse
never felt quite so care-free as he always had before, when wandering
through the woods at night. And he never stayed inside his house after
dark without wondering whether Solomon or Simon could by any chance
discover his snug home in the last year's bird's nest. It was not a
pleasant thought. And the oftener it popped into Dickie's head the less
he liked it.
Sometimes, when summer had ended and fall brought a night that was
rainy and cold, he liked to go home after he had finished his supper,
and burrow deep into his soft bed of cat-tail down.
But even after he had dried his wet coat and warmed himself well, at
such times Dickie Deer Mouse started whenever he heard the slightest
noise. Somehow, he couldn't get the Owl family out of his mind.
As the days grew shorter--and the nights longer--he began to find that
his summer home was not so cozy as it might have been.
The cold wind searched him out, even under his soft covering; and the
driving rains trickled annoyingly through his roof of moss.
So at last Dickie Deer Mouse made up his mind that he would move once
more. And since he was not the sort to put off the doing of anything
that had to be done, he set out at once to see what kind of place he
could find.
Now, Dickie Deer Mouse liked the woods in which he had always lived. So
one might think it strange that when he set forth on his search he
headed straight for Farmer Green's pasture. But there is no doubt that
he knew what he was about.
For some time he crept cautiously about the pasture, peeping under big
rocks, and moving among the roots of the trees which dotted the hillside
here and there. And since his eyes were of the sharpest, what he was
looking for he found in surprising numbers.
Most people, strolling through the pasture, would have noticed little
except grass and bushes, trees and rocks and knolls. But those were not
the things that Dickie Deer Mouse discovered, and sniffed at. What he
was hunting for was _holes_.
For Dickie had decided that when winter came, with its ice and snow, its
cruel gales and its piercing cold, he would be far more comfortable
underground than he could ever hope to be in a last year's bird's nest
that was fastened to a tree.
He had found it no easy matter to pick out a summer home. And now there
were reasons why his search for a winter one was even harder.
It is true that at the beginning of summer, when Dickie Deer Mouse
climbed the tall elm where Mr. Crow lived, he found the old gentleman
asleep in the nest that he had hoped to take for his own. But on the
whole it was easy to discover whether a nest was deserted.
One look into it usually told the story. Eggs in a bird's nest meant
that somebody must live there. And of course if Dickie saw a bird
sitting on a nest he knew right away that he couldn't live there without
having a fight first.
But a _hole_ is different. One can't see what's at the bottom of it
without going inside it.
And that is not always a pleasant thing to do.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]