University of Virginia Library

22. XXII
BILLIE BUSHYTAIL KEEPS STORE

DID any of you children ever play keep a store? I suppose you have, with an old board for a counter, some clam and oyster shells full of sand and sticks for things to sell, and bits of paper, or, maybe, pebbles for money. Isn't it fun? Well, squirrels have to play just as you boys and girls do, so, a few days after the adventure with the bad rat (not the good one, you understand, for I'm going to tell you about the good rat by and by) — a few days after that adventure Johnnie and Billie were sitting on a branch near the nest in the hollow tree, looking around for something to do.

“Let's take our bows and arrows and see if we can hunt that rat again,” suggested Johnnie.

“All right,” agreed Billie. “Only I shot away all my arrows. We will have to gnaw some more out of pieces of wood.”

“Oh, boys, please don't go off into the woods after that bad rat!” begged Sister Sallie. “He might catch you.”

“Pooh! He couldn't catch us!” cried Johnnie, and he straightened up, just like a soldier, and looked very brave.

“No, indeed,” added his brother. “We're not afraid of him!”

“Besides, we want some excitement,” went on Johnnie. “I'm tired of sitting here doing nothing. We haven't had anything happen to us for ever so long — almost three days.”

“I know what let's do,” cried Sister Sallie,

and she put her corncob doll into the nest, carriage, and covered it up with a pine-needle robe, embroidered with pussy willows. “My doll is asleep now, and we can play store.”

“How do you do that?” asked Johnnie.

“I'll show you,” answered Sister Sallie. “Billie can be the storekeeper, and the store will be that low stump over there. He can have acorns and nuts and little stones to sell, and pieces of dried leaves will be money, for they will rustle just like dollar-bills, you know.”

“If Billie is storekeeper, what can I be?” asked Johnnie.

“Oh, you and I will come to buy things,” explained the little girl squirrel.

“Two aren't enough to buy things,” objected Billie. “There ought to be more.”

“Well, perhaps others will come,” said

Sallie. “Come on, now, we will help you fix up the store.”

So they got some pieces of bark to put the things on that were to be sold. And when Mamma Bushytail saw what they were doing she gave them some bits of cake, a little maple sugar, some odds and ends of nuts and other good things left over from breakfast, so they actually had really and truly things in the store.

Then Billie got behind the counter, which was made of little round limbs of trees, placed close together, just like the sides of a log cabin that Abraham Lincoln lived in, and these pieces were laid across two small stumps. Then Billie was ready to sell.

Sister Sallie came to the store first with some pieces of dried leaves for money.

“My mamma wants three and a half of granulated sugar, a quart of beans, and a

yeast cake,” she said, just like a real little girl.

“We are all out of yeast cakes,” said Billie, just like a real storekeeper, “but we have some prunes that will do just as well.”

Well, you should have heard Sister Sallie laugh at that! The idea of prunes being just as good as a yeast cake! But then you see, Billie didn't know any better.

Then Johnnie came, and he bought some pieces of maple sugar and some nuts, and sat right down in the store and ate them.

“Hold on!” cried Billie. “That isn't fair. You get all the good things to eat and I only get dried leaves for them.”

“That is money,” answered his brother, with a laugh. “Besides, storekeepers never eat the things in their store. They sell them to other people.”

“Well, I'm going to eat some,” declared

Billie, and he did. Then who should come along but Bully, the frog, and he bought come water cress, and a little while after that Jennie Chipmunk came along smiling, and she bought some nuts, and they all had a jolly good time. Even the fish-hawk, who happened to be passing, took a little sugar for his digestion, which was not very good.

Then, all at once, who should come running through the woods but a sly old fox. He saw the store, and he was hungry, but he had no money, because all the dried leaves had blown away by that time. So he didn't know how to buy anything at Billie's store. Then he thought of a plan.

“Have you heard about Eagle Rock?” he asked, waving his tail to and fro.

“No, what has happened to it?” asked Johnne, for it was on the mountain where they lived.

“It is all cracked,” said the fox. “You had better go look at it.”

So Johnnie and Billie and Sister Sallie ran off in a hurry to see the cracked rock, and that was just what the fox wanted, for he ate up everything there was left in the store, and never paid a cent, and the rock wasn't cracked at all; what do you think of that? Johnnie and Billie were quite angry at the mean trick the fox had played on them, but after all, they had had a nice time playing store, so they ran home. In case you would like to hear it, I have a story about Billie, Johnnie, and the fairy hen for to-morrow night.