Story Hour
Sigmund the Squirrel
Written by Gene B. Williams
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Sigmund the Squirrel lived in the top branches of the tallest tree in the forest. This was a rather silly thing to do. Those are the weakest branches. Even a small wind made them dance and sway. More than once Sigmund fell, but would go right back to the top of the tree.
He liked it up there. It made him feel important. From there he could watch the forest, and the other squirrels. Clinging to the twigs, looking down, he felt like he was in charge. He chattered his rules, and expected them to be obeyed. Then he would chatter more loudly because the other squirrels didn’t seem to pay any attention.
He didn’t seem to notice that the other creatures also didn’t pay any attention, either. A cat that came through would at least look up and swish its tail. A dog would sometimes bark at him and hop in the leaves. Sigmund was high in the branches, and safe – unless the wind blew and he fell down. Being so high in the tree, he had lots of branches to catch, so he never had to face the cat or the dog. He could safely scold them.
What he didn’t like were the wild turkeys. Sigmund wanted to be in charge. Those turkeys paid him no attention at all. He’d chatter high in the branches, and they pretended he wasn’t even there.
Imagine that. He was in charge of the forest. For proof of that, here’s General Sigmund on the highest branch of the highest tree. What more proof could you want? Here’s General Sigmund, high in the tree, making the rules. Those stupid birds were way down there on the ground. They did the worst thing of all. They ignored him.
No matter how much he chattered, they ignored him.
Stupid birds!
He even rattled the twigs to make more noise. They still ignored him.
Stupid birds!!!
Oh, but it got worse yet. It was autumn, and time to gather acorns and other things for the coming winter. Some of the squirrels were doing their jobs. Sigmund watched them carefully so he would know just where to dig for a buried nut.
Sigmund thought he was too important to gather his own. It didn’t concern him that another squirrel had to do the work to find and bury the nut. “I have to dig it up,” he thought to himself. That was enough. In fact, he sat high in those branches and twigs and worried. The other squirrels weren’t working hard enough. How was he to survive the winter if they didn’t bury enough nuts for him to dig up?
Stupid squirrels. They had a job to do. Find and set aside nuts.
Even those that worked spent far too much time in play. Sigmund sat there in the high branches and watched. He was disgusted. They could be gathering nuts for his winter. Instead, as the sun came up they would be scamper and leap between the branches and chase each other. Worse, they’d find a nut, and instead of burying it, they’d EAT it!
There was no denying it. He sat there high in the branches and watched them do it. Acorns, other nuts, even corn from the field. They gathered it and ate it. No matter how much he chattered, that’s what they did. They gathered and ate.
“Save it for my winter,” he chattered from those high branches that didn’t have so much as a squirrel pantry. “Bury more nuts for me to find later.”
He chattered loudest of all when the wild turkeys were strolling around beneath the trees. They were gobbling the corn left by the other squirrels. HIS corn. They gobbled the nuts, too. HIS! Then they ignored him!
Stupid tukeys.
Just when he thought he couldn’t stand any more, he noticed two young squirrels. He knew them well. Sassy and Sam. They were new in the spring. Right from the start, they began to explore the forest. Even as the sun came up, there they were leaping between the branches and playing tag on the trees.
Stupid squirrels, Sigmund said, but he said it very quietly, because he was a squirrel. He’d forgotten some things – as squirrels do sometimes – but he also remembered – as squirrels do sometimes. For a moment, he even remembered the games the young squirrels played when he himself was a young squirrel.
But this was too much!
Stupid Sassy and Stupid Sam had found themselves a branch ripe with acorns just overhead of where a small flock of stupid wild turkeys were gathered. One of the young squirrels would drop an acorn.
CLONK and the acorn bounced off the head of a turkey. The turkey would look around to figure what had just happened.
CLONK would come another acorn on another turkey head.
CLONK
CLONK
CLONK
CLONK
It was a game on three levels. Way up on top was Sigmund, chattering himself into a fury. What a terrible waste of acorns that were rightfully HIS! Down on the forest floor were turkeys getting clonked on their heads but really didn’t understand or care. In the middle were Sassy and Sam, having more fun than they’d had all that day.
CLONK
Chatter chatter chatter (from Sigmund).
CLONK
Of course, Sassy and Sam were having a great time. Sigmund was disgusted. There they were in the lower branches making a game of wasting perfectly good acorns, clonking them off the heads of the stupid wild turkeys – while he sat in the high branches with just one acorn.
He chattered and scolded them, and they ignored him. He was furious until … well, until he just couldn’t stand it any more. He took his one acorn, and with careful aim picked out a wild turkey way down there on the forest floor. But Sigmund, for all his seriousness and chatter, was a very good clonker.
CLONK! And the nut bounced off Sam’s head. CLONK! And it bounced off the turkey. Both bird and squirrel looked around to figure out what had just happened. They looked up and saw Sigmund high in the branches.
What they saw was Sigmund looking up into the sky as though to ask, “What just happened?”
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