a long time Frisky clung there. Now and then he almost slipped off
as the rock tilted. But it never tipped quite over; and Frisky managed
to stick on. And then, at last, he decided that he had better hop off
onto the ground, for he noticed that the rock was moving straight
toward the river. It went down the bank at a faster pace. And Frisky
leaped off just in time to escape a wetting, for the next moment the
rock dropped splash! into the water.

Frisky Squirrel waited on the shore and watched it, with eyes wide
open with astonishment. He had expected to see it sink to the bottom
of the river. But the rock swam away as easily as you please. That was
the strangest part of it all--a rock which could not only walk, but
could swim as well!

Frisky turned about and ran for home as fast as he could jump. This
time he certainly did have important business. He had such a strange
thing to tell his mother! He reached home quite out of breath. And as
soon as he could, he told Mrs. Squirrel what he had seen.

That good lady did not know what to think. She had always found her
son to be truthful. But this was certainly a queer story. She lay
awake a long time that night thinking about the matter. And early the
next morning she took Frisky and set out for Swift River. Frisky led
her to the very spot where the stone had swum away.

"There it is! There it is now!" he cried, as they paused upon the bank
and he pointed down toward the water's edge.

When Mrs. Squirrel saw what Frisky was pointing at she no longer
wondered.

"It's a mud turtle!" she exclaimed. "You had a ride on a mud turtle
and you never knew it." She smiled, because she was amused; and
because she was happy, too. For she knew that Frisky had told the
truth.

IV

The Picnic

It was a fine spring day--so pleasant that the children from the little
red schoolhouse over the hill came to the woods where Frisky Squirrel
lived. They came for the first picnic of the season, and such a noise
as they made had never been heard in those woods before.

Frisky Squirrel was frightened at first. But at last he grew
accustomed to the uproar, and he crept out on the limb where he
lived--not too far away from the door--and looked down and watched the
fun.

He was enjoying the picnic quite as much as the merry-makers
themselves--until a boy spied him. And then several boys began to throw
acorns at him. Frisky did not like that so well; and he hid in a
crotch of the t