Village Shepherd

Nutman was very excited. He always rose from his bed much earlier than any of the other squirrels, and he loved to go exploring miles away from the dray which was his home. He had discovered a rich source of all different kinds of nuts, and he had the feeling this would be his best autumn ever.

He scampered away, through the woods and over the fields, along beside the stream and across the meadow until he came to the hidden old park where he had found almond trees and walnut trees and cobnuts and hazels and conkers. The park was quite deserted, and well away from the usual patch which the squirrels worked. Nutman spent happy hours collecting as many different nuts as he could find and burying them in the ground, until he had a huge hoard ready for the winter.

Then he gathered some of the smaller hazels and set off home. When he reached home he gave a hazelnut to each of the other squirrels. He was only following the rules, which stated that any squirrel who collected nuts must give at least one nut to every other member of the squirrel tribe, but he felt very important as he handed out his gifts. In fact, he was rather pompous about it, and a little put out when the other squirrels simply looked at their gifts and shrugged ungratefully. They all collected nuts themselves, and were not particularly impressed by Nutman. Indeed, Bushman, the squirrel with the bushiest and most beautiful tail of all of them, began to play football with his hazelnut, and with whoops and cries of joy all the other squirrels soon joined in.

Nutman was furious. He'd expected everyone to clamour round him, listening with bated breath to his nut-collecting stories of adventure and daring. He'd thought he might be able to preen in a little wave of envy from the others. He'd even pictured himself being the squirrel saviour during the winter, proudly coming home with nuts whenever the other squirrels ran out of food. He certainly hadn't expected them all to ignore him and go off playing football with his precious hazelnuts.

Moodily he sat down beside the oldest squirrel in the tribe, who was too old and too lame to play football any more. "They're having so much fun - at my expense," Nutman complained. "I thought they'd be so pleased with my gifts, but they're not. I hate them all. And I really believe they're having a much better time than me. They don't even want me with them. It isn't fair."

The old, lame squirrel nibbled at his hazlenut for a moment before replying. Then he said, "If you found so many delicious nuts, why did you only bring one small hazelnut back for each of us?"

Nutman frowned. "I kept the law," he said defensively. "I did exactly what I'm supposed to do. I could have pretended I hadn't found anything, but I didn't. I followed the squirrel law to the letter. There are lots of squirrels who wouldn't have done that."

"Perhaps not," admitted the old, lame squirrel. "But that's your trouble, sure enough. If you really want to have fun and enjoy life just like your friends out there, take them with you next time you go nutting."

Nutman was horrified. "I found them myself, they're mine!" he argued. "And I worked hard for those nuts. I was up earlier than any other squirrel, I've travelled further than any other squirrel, and I've faced all kinds of dangers." If the truth was told, he'd only been chased by one cat, but he didn't mention that. Instead he added, "I've earned all those nuts by sheer hard work. If I take the others with me, they'll discover my hoard and I shall have hardly anything left for myself."

"Exactly," nodded the old, lame squirrel. "You'd have to share, and by sharing you'd find you joined in with all the others and had enormous fun."

But Nutman looked at him with sad, disbelieving eyes, shook his head and scampered away all by himself, back to his very own secret hoard of almonds and walnuts, cobnuts and hazels and conkers.