The Squirrel and the Moon

Once there was a brown squirrel.

He and the other squirrels gathered nuts day by day and every way they kept busy.

After a few seasons, the brown squirrel grew restless and scurried about farther from the trees in which he made his home than ever before; so far, in fact, that he was able to see through the dense canopy to the moon above.

"Oh what a new and wonderous thing!" said the brown squirrel, who staid and played under the moonlight.

The brown squirrel eventually returned to the trees that were his home and the other squirrels asked him where he had been.

"I have been to the moonlight where things are new and wonderous," he said.

The other squirrels were offended. They marked the brown squirrel with tree sap, "Moon! This squirrel belongs here amongst the trees! Do not deceive him with your stellar promises!"

But though the moon waxed and waned, it remained beautiful and the brown squirrel returned to it and staid longer each time.

The other squirrels chitterred and chattered their anger, "Moon!! Moon! You dastardly fellow! Why do you make me so sad?"

The brown squirrel heard his friends and was mad at himself and the moon too. He staid away from the moon and staid in the woods. For the seasons to come he gathered nuts and staid by the trees in which he and his fellow squirrels lived; when he was restless he dreamt of the moonlight and blamed his sad soul on the squirrels around him.