Mr. Brown woke up suddenly and carried the mole into his house.


He shut the door in Nutkin's face. Presently a little thread of blue SMOKE from a wood fire came up from the top of the tree, and Nutkin peeped through the key-hole and sang--

"A house full, a hole full! And you cannot gather a bowl-full!"


The squirrels searched for nuts all over the island and filled their little sacks.

But Nutkin gathered oak-apples-- yellow and scarlet--and sat upon a beech-stump playing marbles, and watching the door of old Mr. Brown.

On the third day the squirrels got up very early and went fishing; they caught seven fat minnows as a present for Old Brown.

They paddled over the lake and landed under a crooked chestnut tree on Owl Island.


Twinkleberry and six other little squirrels each carried a fat minnow; but Nutkin, who had no nice manners, brought no present at all. He ran in front, singing--

"The man in the wilderness said to me, `How may strawberries grow in the sea?' I answered him as I thought good-- `As many red herrings as grow in the wood."'