ved a
terrific box on the ear. Now, it's bad enough for anybody to have his
ears boxed. But Jimmy's ears were so big that I dare say it hurt him
three times as much as it would have hurt anyone else. And it
surprised him, too. For he hadn't heard Mrs. Squirrel as she stole up
behind him. Anyhow, he ran off howling, taking his mother's shears
with him.

"That awful Rabbit boy!" Mrs. Squirrel said. "A moment more and he
would have cut off your beautiful tail--your best feature, too!"

"What's a feature, Mother?" Frisky asked.

"Why--your nose, and your eyes, and your ears--anything of that sort,"
Mrs. Squirrel said. "It makes me feel faint just to think what almost
happened."

"But Jimmy Rabbit says long tails are out of fashion," said Frisky.

"Out of fashion indeed!" Mrs. Squirrel sniffed. "He's jealous--that's
what's the trouble with him. He wishes he had a fine, long, bushy tail
himself. Goodness me! I'm all of a flutter--I'm so upset." And poor
Mrs. Squirrel sat right down and fanned herself with her sun-bonnet.
"Now, don't you ever let anybody try to cut off your tail again," she
said to Frisky. "You have your father's tail. And everybody always
said that he had the most beautiful tail that was ever seen in these
woods."

Frisky didn't quite understand what his mother meant. If he had his
father's tail, then where was his? And if it was his, then where was
his father's? All the way home he kept asking himself questions like
those. But whatever the answers might be, Frisky was glad that he
still bore that beautiful brush. He began to see that he would have
looked very queer, with just a short stub like Jimmy Rabbit's.

XII

Frisky Visits the Gristmill

Frisky Squirrel was very fond of wheat-kernels. Somehow or other he
heard that there was a place on Swift River called the gristmill,
where there was almost all the wheat in the world--at least that is
what Frisky heard. So he started out, one day, to find the gristmill.
He thought he could have a very pleasant time there.

Frisky had no trouble at all in finding the gristmill. It was just
below the mill-dam. And everybody knew where that was.

The gristmill was an old stone building with a red roof. And once
inside it Frisky saw great heaps of wheat-kernels everywhere. And
there were sacks and sacks too--some of them stuffed with kernels,
which Frisky was so fond of, and some of them filled with a fine white
powder, which Frisky didn't like so w