Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/105

 shabby behaviour of Philip's went on until all the squirrels knew him by sight. Then he could not hoax them any more. When they saw him holding out peanut shells and calling to them, they paid no attention.

All this did not matter much in summer, when peanuts are plentiful. In summer the city squirrels get probably more nuts than are good for them. That little groaning you sometimes hear in the trees along Riverside Drive at night comes from some young squirrels with stomach-ache, due to an excess of rich diet. But winter came, when peanuts mean much to the New York squirrels, For they have been so spoiled by having food scattered about for them, my cousin says, that they have lost their thrifty habit of storing up a supply for the barren season. And then, when Philip and his nurse still continued to eat most of the peanuts before they got to the park, and still amused themselves by offering the empty husks, it was determined to do something.

The boy and his companion did not notice, as they walked home one snowy dusk, that two watchful gray squirrels were following. Up the steep hill from the Drive, hiding now and then