itch in my back, and over
she went, plump into the hole I'd dug. Now wouldn't you have thought
that the door would open when the thing fell? Cheeko declared that he
couldn't see the least little bit of a crack when it tipped, and
after that it was all over, so far as Cheeko Squirrel was concerned,
because the house was bottom up, resting on the top of the door in
such a way that a dozen rabbits and hedgehogs, with more'n a hundred
crows to boss 'em, couldn't have moved it.

"Jimmy and I rooted and rooted the best we knew how, with Cheeko
coaxing and crying all the time, promising never to be impudent to us
again if we'd only get him out of the terrible fix; but it was no use.
He was in a bad box and there was nothing we could do to help him.

"'We've both worn the skin all off our noses and can't stir it a
little bit,' I said, feeling mighty sorry for the little fellow, even
if he had been rude to me whenever I had tried to do him a good turn.

"'Try it just once more, Bunny, dear!' he cried, and his voice sounded
as if there were tears in it. 'Don't let that wicked boy, Tommy, carry
me off to one of his miserable prisons!'

"'You wouldn't take the advice of those who were older and more
experienced in the world and now you must pay the price for being
headstrong,' Mr. Crow cawed, and it made me provoked to hear him
reading a lesson to poor Cheeko when he was in such a peck of trouble,
so I said, speaking as easy as I knew how:

"'There's no use telling him about what has been done, Mr. President.
He knows all that only too well, and we'd better spend what little
time we've got before Mr. Man's boy Tommy comes back in trying to make
him feel better.'

"'He would have the dose, no matter what we could say, and, according
to my way of thinking, it's high time he was brought up with a sharp
turn, for he had got it into his head that he owned pretty near all
the big woods,' Mr. Crow said, and then he flew off to watch for
Tommy, so's to give us fair warning, for however sharp the old fellow
may talk his heart is always in the right place when it comes to
helping us wood folks who behave ourselves.

"Well, Jimmy and I kept on trying to turn the box over again until we
heard Mr. Crow calling out that the boys were coming and then it was
up to us to get out of the way unless we were willing to go further
with Cheeko than would be at all pleasant.

"'We've got to skip,' I whispered to him, putting my mouth close to
th