Queer Little Folks

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Гарриет Бичер-Стоу. Queer Little Folks

HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS

THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE

THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP

MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET

MOTHER MAGPIE’S MISCHIEF

THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE

HUM, THE SON OF BUZ

OUR COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS

THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF LITTLE WHISKEY

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Mr. and Mrs. Nutcracker were as respectable a pair of squirrels as ever wore gray brushes over their backs.  They were animals of a settled and serious turn of mind, not disposed to run after vanities and novelties, but filling their station in life with prudence and sobriety.  Nutcracker Lodge was a hole in a sturdy old chestnut overhanging a shady dell, and was held to be as respectably kept an establishment as there was in the whole forest.  Even Miss Jenny Wren, the greatest gossip of the neighbourhood, never found anything to criticise in its arrangements; and old Parson Too-whit, a venerable owl who inhabited a branch somewhat more exalted, as became his profession, was in the habit of saving himself much trouble in his parochial exhortations by telling his parishioners in short to “look at the Nutcrackers” if they wanted to see what it was to live a virtuous life.  Everything had gone on prosperously with them, and they had reared many successive families of young Nutcrackers, who went forth to assume their places in the forest of life, and to reflect credit on their bringing up,—so that naturally enough they began to have a very easy way of considering themselves models of wisdom.

But at last it came along, in the course of events, that they had a son named Featherhead, who was destined to bring them a great deal of anxiety.  Nobody knows what the reason is, but the fact was, that Master Featherhead was as different from all the former children of this worthy couple as if he had been dropped out of the moon into their nest, instead of coming into it in the general way.  Young Featherhead was a squirrel of good parts and a lively disposition, but he was sulky and contrary and unreasonable, and always finding matter of complaint in everything his respectable papa and mamma did.  Instead of assisting in the cares of a family,—picking up nuts and learning other lessons proper to a young squirrel,—he seemed to settle himself from his earliest years into a sort of lofty contempt for the Nutcrackers, for Nutcracker Lodge, and for all the good old ways and institutions of the domestic hole, which he declared to be stupid and unreasonable, and entirely behind the times.  To be sure, he was always on hand at meal-times, and played a very lively tooth on the nuts which his mother had collected, always selecting the very best for himself; but he seasoned his nibbling with so much grumbling and discontent, and so many severe remarks, as to give the impression that he considered himself a peculiarly ill-used squirrel in having to “eat their old grub,” as he very unceremoniously called it.

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“Oh, I don’t doubt that Tip is good enough,” said Featherhead carelessly; “but then he is so very common! he hasn’t an idea in his skull above his nuts and his hole.  He is good-natured enough, to be sure,—these very ordinary people often are good-natured,—but he wants manner; he has really no manner at all; and as to the deeper feelings, Tip hasn’t the remotest idea of them.  I mean always to be civil to Tip when he comes in my way, but I think the less we see of that sort of people the better; and I hope, mother, you won’t invite the Chipmunks at Christmas,—these family dinners are such a bore!”

“But, my dear, your father thinks a great deal of the Chipmunks; and it is an old family custom to have all the relatives here at Christmas.”

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