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Updated: May 20, 2025
It gave the Meadow Mouse people too many openings into which to dive in case of a sudden surprise when they were having a moonlight party. "If they ever invited me to one of their affairs I wouldn't care what they did," Solomon Owl remarked one evening to his whistling cousin, Simon Screecher. "If they'd welcome me just once to one of their dances I'd be satisfied."
But of course you can't surprise them if you tell them you're coming. You might as well send them a telegram, saying that you'll be on hand to meet them at eight P. M." Simon Screecher was silenced for the time being. And it wasn't long before Solomon Owl gave another start. "There's that squeak again!" he whispered. "I believe it is getting nearer, too."
And all the time Simon Screecher grew more discontented. Toward the end of the night he declared flatly that he wasn’t going to hunt any more with his cousin. “I’ve done exactly as I agreed!” Solomon Owl protested. “You’re altogether too slow and clumsy,” Simon Screecher told him bluntly. “If I’m going to hunt with anybody after this I’m going to choose someone that’s as spry as I am.
I wasn't coming back here to-morrow night. I don't like sleeping in the woods and having my rest disturbed by hoots and whistles." "I suppose you don't," Simon Screecher admitted. "And I shouldn't care to try to sleep at the farmyard in the daytime and he waked by gobbles." "I wish you would come down to the farmyard," Turkey Proudfoot told him.
But Solomon Owl and Simon Screecher and old Rough-leg, the hawk, knew all about the habits of the villagers. In fact they sometimes complained about the way the Meadow Mouse family had built their tunnels. They agreed that there were too many holes leading down to the village streets.
"I'm glad to see you," Solomon Owl told his cousin Simon Screecher, while Dickie Deer Mouse stood stock still on the ground beneath the tree where the two cousins were sitting. "I'm glad to see you. And I hope you're enjoying good health." "I'm well enough," Simon Screecher grunted. "Do you find plenty to eat nowadays?" Solomon asked him. Simon Screecher admitted that he was not starving. "Ah!"
"Yes!" "Why didn't you grab him out of the snow?" Simon asked. "What are your claws for? What's your beak for?" "I couldn't dig him out," Solomon Owl replied. "The snow is three feet deep. And it has seven different crusts, one under another." "This is a hard winter," said Simon Screecher. "I wish I'd gone South last fall. I wonder how the mousing is down there." Eating a Tree
"Solomon Owl says that he doesn't care to meet you at all," Simon Screecher explained. "He says he has heard about you before and that you're a tough old bird." "I'm not!" Turkey shrieked. "I'm very tender and I'm not ten years old." "Solomon Owl says he doesn't care to bother with any but the very youngest Turkeys." "Well," Turkey Proudfoot retorted, "no matter what he says, the joke's on him.
And then he said good evening and ran off to the place where Farmer Green had been threshing oats, feeling very well pleased with himself. Chirpy Cricket took pains to follow Mr. Meadow Mouse's advice. And neither Simon Screecher nor his cousin Solomon Owl troubled Chirpy all the rest of the summer. He fiddled the nights away with more pleasure than ever before.
Dickie Deer Mouse exclaimed under his breath. "I know his voice. And I hope he won't come this way!" Dickie halted for a few minutes, near an old oak with spreading roots, under which he intended to hide in case Simon Screecher should suddenly appear. But he soon decided that Simon was headed for another part of the woods, for his quavering cry grew fainter and fainter.
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