Out of Context

Quickly getting this typed up before I leave for my first volunteered grave shift (leading into a double) in almost a year.

Mother West Wind’s “How” Stories
Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess

“One moonlight night, Old Mother Nature happened along and sat down on a log to watch him. Little Mr. Squirrel didn’t see her, and when at last she asked him what he was doing, he was so surprised and confused that he could hardly find his tongue. At last he told her that he was trying to learn to jump better that he might better take care of himself. The idea pleased Old Mother Nature. You know she is always pleased when she finds people trying to help themselves.

“‘That’s a splendid idea,’ said she. ‘I’ll help you. I’ll make you the greatest jumper in the Green Forest.’

“Then she gave to little Mr. Squirrel something almost but not quite like wings. Between his fore legs and hind legs on each side she stretched a piece of skin that folded right down against his body when he was walking or running so as to hardly show and wasn’t in the way at all.

“‘Now,’ said she, ‘climb that tall tree over yonder clear to the top and then jump with all your might for that tree over there across that open place.’

“It was ten times as far as little Mr. Squirrel ever had jumped before, and the tree was so tall that he felt sure that he would break his neck when he struck the ground. He was afraid, very much afraid. But Old Mother Nature had told him to do it. He knew that he ought to trust her.”