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Updated: June 18, 2025
He would throw his penny on the ground, go round the house, and saunter back with his hands in his pockets till he saw the penny, which he pounced upon with almost the joy of treasure-trove in the highway. Meeko made a sad end a fate which he deserved well enough, but which I had to pity, spite of myself. When the spring came on, he went back to evil ways.
So he came to the last turn, followed the last branch, his nose to the bark, straight to the crevice under the broken branch, where Meeko crouched shivering, knowing it was all over. There was a cry, that no one heeded in the woods; there was a flash of sharp teeth, and the squirrel fell, striking the ground with a heavy thump.
He sees a blue jay flitting through the woods, and knows by his unusual silence that he is hiding things. Meeko follows after him, stopping all his jabber and stealing from tree to tree, watching patiently, for hours it need be, until he knows that Deedeeaskh is gathering corn from a certain field.
There is a curious Indian legend about Meeko the red squirrel the Mischief-Maker, as the Milicetes call him which is also an excellent commentary upon his character. Simmo told it to me, one day, when we had caught Meeko coming out of a woodpecker's hole with the last of a brood of fledgelings in his mouth, chuckling to himself over his hunting.
Curiously enough, he did not suspect at first that they were stolen. Meeko is always quite sure that nobody knows his secrets. He searched the tree over, went to his other hiding places, came back, counted his peanuts, then searched the ground beneath, thinking, no doubt, the wind must have blown them out all this before he had tasted a peanut of those that remained.
When the spring comes he goes a-hunting, and is for a season the most villainous of nest-robbers. Every bird in the woods then hates him, takes a jab at him, and cries thief, thief! wherever he goes. On a trout brook once I had a curious sense of comradeship with Meeko. It was in the early spring, when all the wild things make holiday, and man goes a-fishing.
When he is hungry he will carry off Deedeeaskh's corn before touching his own. Once I saw the tables turned in a most interesting fashion. Deedeeaskh is as big a thief in his way as is Meeko, and also as vile a nest-robber. The red squirrel had found a hoard of chestnuts small fruit, but sweet and good and was hiding it away.
But when Clote Scarpe went away they quarreled, and Lhoks the panther and Nemox the fisher took to killing the other animals. Malsun the wolf soon followed, and ate all he killed; and Meeko the squirrel, who always makes all the mischief he can, set even the peaceable animals by the ears, so that they feared and distrusted each other.
Simmo took his axe deliberately and swung it mightily at the foot of the tree, as if to chop it down; only he hit the trunk with the head, not the blade of his weapon. At the first blow, which made his toes tingle, Meeko stopped jeering and ran higher. Simmo swung again and Meeko went up another notch.
Then he watches the line of flight, like a bee hunter, and sees Deedeeaskh disappear twice by an oak on the wood's edge, a hundred yards away. Meeko rushes away at a headlong pace and hides himself in the oak. There he traces the jay's line of flight a little farther into the woods; sees the unconscious thief disappear by an old pine.
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