Print
Word
PDFTitle: The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes
Author: Beatrix Potter
Release Date: January 25, 2005 [EBook #14797]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** Start of this project gutenberg EBOOK the tale of Timmy Tiptoes ***
Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Emmy and the PG Online
Distributed
Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net).
[Illustration]
By
Beatrix Potter
Author of
“The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” etc.
[Illustration]
Frederick Warne & Co., Inc.
New York
1911
By
Frederick Warne & Co.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY PRINCETON POLYCHROME PRESS
BINDING BY A. HOROWITZ & SON
FOR
Many unknown little Friends,
INCLUDING MONICA
[Illustration]
Once upon a time there was a little fat comfortable grey squirrel, called Timmy Tiptoes. He had a nest thatched with leaves in the top of a tall tree; and he had a little squirrel wife called Goody.
[Illustration]
Timmy Tiptoes sat out, enjoying the breeze; he whisked his tail and chuckled—“Little wife Goody, the nuts are ripe; we must lay up a store for winter and spring.” Goody Tiptoes was busy pushing moss under the thatch—“The nest is so snug, we shall be sound asleep all winter.” “Then we shall wake up all the thinner, when there is nothing to eat in spring-time,” replied prudent Timothy.
[Illustration]
When Timmy and Goody Tiptoes came to the nut thicket, they found other squirrels were there already.
Timmy took off his jacket and hung it on a twig; they worked away quietly by themselves.
[Illustration]
Every day they made several journeys and picked quantities of nuts. They carried them away in bags, and stored them in several hollow stumps near the tree where they had built their nest.
[Illustration]
When these stumps were full, they began to empty the bags into a hole high up a tree, that had belonged to a wood-pecker; the nuts rattled down—down—down inside.
“How shall you ever get them out again? It is like a money-box!” said Goody.
“I shall be much thinner before spring-time, my love,” said Timmy Tiptoes, peeping into the hole.
[Illustration]
They did collect quantities—because they did not lose them! Squirrels who bury their nuts in the ground lose more than half, because they cannot remember the place.
