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Updated: May 20, 2025
AS SIMON SCREECHER remarked to his cousin, Solomon Owl, it was a hard winter. The snow was deep. The days were cold. And the nights were colder. And, worst of all, food became scarce. It seemed as if there wasn't anything to eat anywhere except at the farm buildings, which Farmer Green had stuffed full of hay and grain during the summer and autumn.
Simon Screecher lived in the apple orchard, in a hollow tree, where he could sleep during the day safe from attack by mobs of small birds, who had the best of reasons for disliking him. By night Simon wandered about the fields and the woods, hunting for mice and insects.
And they had not hunted long before Solomon discovered that Simon had succeeded in disposing of six mice to his three. That discovery did not please Solomon at all. “Look here!” he said. “Since we are hunting together it’s only fair to divide what we catch, half and half.” Simon Screecher hesitated.
"What's the matter?" Solomon Owl asked Simon Screecher. "If you had any teeth I'd think they were chattering.... Are you having a chill?" Simon made no answer. "Maybe you're afraid of something," Solomon Owl suggested. "Can it be that young Deer Mouse down there on the ground?" And he laughed loudly at what he thought was a joke. "That's my Deer Mouse!"
Is Miss Screecher quite sure that was the whole of it? Or has she been playing tricks upon us, the naughty lady, defrauding us of a verse? Miss Screecher assures us that the fault is the composer's. But she knows another. At this hint, our faces lighten again with gladness. We clamour for more. Our host's wine is always the most extraordinary we have ever tasted.
His wailing, tremulous whistle, which floated through the shadowy woods, showed that he was far from happy. It proved to be just as Solomon Owl had told his cousin, Simon Screecher. Solomon had so much on his mind that he had no sooner fallen asleep than he awoke again, to study over the question that perplexed him. He certainly did not want Simon to have twice as many mice as he.
Snowy Owl was spending the winter. Unlike Solomon Owl, and his cousin Simon Screecher, Mr. Snowy Owl did not turn night into day. So Tommy Fox found him wide awake and ready for a fight or a frolic, whichever might come his way. He was a handsome bird this newcomer in his showy white suit, spotted with black.
There in the woods, at night, Simon Screecher the owl had told him of something that "counted," something that was right in front of Turkey Proudfoot's eyes. And Turkey Proudfoot named everything he could think of. He mentioned the oak tree in which he sat, the darkness, the yellow moon. "You're wrong!" Simon Screecher kept telling him. "You're getting further away with every guess.
"You'd drive old dog Spot half crazy with your whistling." Simon Screecher looked thoughtful. "No!" he said. "Farmer Green might drive me half crazy with his old shotgun." He yawned as he spoke. "I don't see what's making me so sleepy," he remarked. "I must be going home." "Don't hurry!" Turkey Proudfoot begged him. "I'm beginning to enjoy your company though I can't exactly say why.
Meadow Mouse "some other way of being safe from Simon Screecher." Mr. Meadow Mouse acted as if he thought he had been a great help when he said that Chirpy Cricket would have to think of another way to avoid Simon Screecher's cruel talons. But the more Chirpy turned the matter over in his mind the further he seemed to be from any plan. For several days and nights he puzzled over his problem.
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