After making his strange wish about his eighteen cousins--that they
would sleep straight through the winter--Dickie Deer Mouse crawled out
of bed. The sleepers filled the chamber so full that Dickie had to step
into the hall before he could stretch himself.
For some reason he seemed to feel unusually _stretchy_. Generally when
he waked up he sprang up at once and dashed out of his house, to find
something to eat. But now he had half a mind to go back to bed again.
He did not do that, however, because he wanted to get away from his
unwelcome guests for a time. So he crept through his long hall and
crawled out through his front door, into the world above.
To Dickie's great surprise a startling change had come over the pasture.
The weather had cleared while he slept and the stars twinkled in the
heavens above him. And the hillside pasture was white with a thick
blanket of snow.
It was cold, too--much colder than it had been when Dickie went to
sleep.
Luckily a crust had formed upon the snow--a crust that was just strong
enough to support Dickie's weight. And he made swiftly for the spruce
woods, to hunt for his supper, for he knew he could find nothing on the
ground, covered as it was by the snow.
Dickie felt even hungrier than he usually did when starting out of an
evening to look for something to eat. But that was not strange, for
without knowing it, he had slept several days and nights in the snug
chamber with his cousins.
Dickie did not stay out all night long. Yet he took time, before he went
home, to hide a small store of spruce seeds in a hollow rail of the
pasture fence. He knew that before the long winter came to an end he
would find that food in the woods would grow alarmingly scarce.
Long before daybreak Dickie Deer Mouse was glad to return to the
underground chamber. And as he crept into the crowded room he thought it
the coziest home he had ever had. He knew, at last, what made the place
so warm. The soft, round bodies of his eighteen cousins heated it almost
as well as if he had had a real stove.
It was lucky for him, after all, that Fatty Coon had told them about
Dickie's new house. And now Dickie only hoped that none of them would
leave before spring.
That snowstorm proved to be only the first warning of winter. In a few
days the weather grew quite warm again. And to Dickie's dismay the three
families of cousins waked up and went out of doors to get the air, and
gather seeds and such thin-shelled nuts as they could find.
They did not eat all that they picked up. Like Dickie Deer Mouse, they
stored some of the food in secret nooks and crannies, against a time of
need.
That first early snowstorm had been a good thing for the dwellers in the
underground chamber. It had warned them that winter was coming. And
during the weeks that passed before the whole countryside became
snow-bound they managed to gather enough nuts and seeds to last them
through any ordinary winter--if they didn't eat too heartily.
When the real winter finally descended upon Pleasant Valley it found the
Deer Mouse cousins quite ready for it. And even if Dickie's relations
did wake up now and then, when the weather wasn't too cold, they slept
soundly enough at other times, so that they did not disturb him greatly.
Even the children, who had pushed and crowded when they first entered
the front hall of the house--even they were surprisingly quiet, when
they were asleep.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]