Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/181

 other. For Nippie was not the sort of squirrel to settle down into insignificance without at least making a good fight for herself. She had failed as a beauty; but it was still possible to succeed as something else. She was not long in deciding what this should be. She would become 'strong-minded.'

"Her first step was leaving off the 'ie' from her name. Nicknames, she declared, especially those ending in ie, were silly and affected. As she had been privately spoken of as 'Nip' for some time past among her young relations, no one made the least objection to the change. So Nippie the belle became plain Nippy; and soon after, to the astonishment of her friends, beech-leaves began to circulate about, bearing the name of 'Dr. Nutcracker,' and it was announced that Nippy had adopted the practice of medicine.

"This, however, was another failure, and did not last long. Nippy began in a small way with a remedy of her own invention, which she called 'acorn-water,' and which consisted of portions of a neighboring brook upon which the shadow