Chapter 8

Uncle Sammy Coon

One day Frisky Squirrel was looking for something to eat in the woods, when whom should he meet but Uncle Sammy Coon, a good-for-nothing old fellow who lived over in the swamp.

"Well, young man!" said Uncle Sammy, "what are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to find a few seeds to eat," Frisky explained.

"I know where there's some corn," said Uncle Sammy Coon. "It's last year's corn, to be sure; but it's good, just the same."

"Where is it?" Frisky asked him.

"Hm--" said Uncle Sammy. "If I told you would you get some of it for me? It would be easy for a spry young chap like you to take all you wanted of it. But I've a lame knee, you know, and I can't climb so well as I used to."

"Of course I'll get some corn for you," Frisky promised. "Where is it?"

"I'll take you to it," said Uncle Sammy--"this very night." He was a suspicious old chap--which means that he was afraid that if he told Frisky then, Frisky would go off alone and take what corn he wanted without giving Uncle Sammy any.

"To-night!" Frisky exclaimed. "Oh, I don't stay out late at night, you know, as you do." Uncle Sammy Coon was known to keep very late hours.

"Well--right after sundown, then," the old rascal said. "We'll meet over by the brook. Don't tell your mother. It will be a pleasant surprise for her, when you bring home a fine bagful of corn."

"All right! I'll be there," Frisky told him.

And sure enough! Just as the sun sank out of sight that evening, Frisky appeared on the bank of the brook. And he hadn't told his mother what he was going to do, either.

Pretty soon Uncle Sammy Coon came along. He had an old sack slung over his shoulder and a wide grin on his face.

"Come on, young man!" he said, "and we'll go over to Farmer Green's place."

"Farmer Green's!" Frisky cried. "I don't want to go there." He remembered the fright he had had when he fell into the flour-barrel in Farmer Green's kitchen.

"You promised," Uncle Sammy reminded him. "And unless you want something you won't like nearly so well as corn, you had better march right along with me."

He was so cross that Frisky Squirrel thought he had better mind him. But Frisky wished he had not come. And he wished he had told his mother what he was going to do, too. But he trotted along with Uncle Sammy--only he was careful not to get too close to the tricky old gentleman, for there was no knowing when Uncle Sammy might suddenly decide that he would rather have a nice, tender, young gray squirrel to eat than all the last year's corn in the world. You see, the little forest-people have to think of many things--especially when they walk out alone with a person like Uncle Sammy Coon.