here is no wind. It is true he
sometimes comes along with a most tremendous push, and the trees go
cracking over. That is only because they are malice-minded, and are
rotten at the heart; and the boughs break off, that is only because they
have invited the fungus to grow on them; and the thatch on your papa's
ricks is lifted up at the corner just as if the wind had chucked them
under the chin.

"But that is nothing. Everybody loses his temper now and then, and why
not the wind? You should see the nuts he knocks down for me where I
could not very well reach them, and the showers of acorns, and the
apples! I take an apple out of your orchard, dear, sometimes, but I do
not mean any harm--it is only one or two. I love the wind! But do not go
near an elm, dear, when the wind blows, for the elm, as I told you, is a
malicious tree, and will seize any pretence, or a mere puff, to do
mischief."

"I love the wind too!" said Bevis. "He sings to me down the chimney, and
hums to me through the door, and whistles up in the attic, and shouts at
me from the trees. Oh, yes, I will do as you say; I will always have
plenty of the wind. You are a very nice squirrel. I like you very much;
and you have a lovely silky tail. But you have not told me yet who it is
Kapchack is in love with."

"I have been telling you all the time," said the squirrel; "but you are
in such a hurry; and, as I was saying, if it was only a young magpie,
now--only an ordinary affair--very likely the queen would be jealous,
indeed, and there would be a fight in the palace, which would be nothing
at all new, but this is much more serious, a very serious matter, and
none can tell how it will end. As Kauc, the crow, was saying to Cloctaw,
the jackdaw, this morning----"

"But who is it?" asked Bevis, jumping up again in a rage.

"Why, everybody knows who it is," said the squirrel; "from the ladybird
to the heron; from the horse to the mouse; and everybody is talking of
it, and as since the raven went away, there is no judge to settle any
dispute----"

"I hate you!" said Bevis, "you do talk so much; but you do not tell me
what I want to know. You are a regular donkey, and I will pull your
tail."

He snatched at the squirrel's tail, but the squirrel was too quick; he
jumped up the boughs and showed his white teeth, and ran away in a
temper.

Bevis looked all round, but could not see him, and as he was looking a
dragon-fly came and said that the squirrel had sent h