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.