After dinner Mamma Littletail asked Sammie and Susie to go to the cabbage-field store for her, but, as Sammie wanted to stay home and make a whistle out of a carrot, Susie went alone.  As she was walking along under a big tree, she heard a noise in the branches, and, looking up, she saw a number of squirrels.  One was the squirrel who had given her old nest to Mrs. Wren.  The little gray chaps were running about, seemingly much excited over something.  Presently they all scampered down, and Susie saw that they had their mouths full of nuts.  They put them on the ground in a little heap, and then the little bunny girl noticed that there was, nearby, an old stump, and it was set just like a table, with dried leaves for plates, and the tops of acorns for cups.

“What is going on here?” Susie asked the squirrel whom she knew.

“I am giving a party in honor of having moved into my new nest,” said the squirrel.  “Wouldn’t you like to come?”

“Yes,” said Susie very politely, “I would like very much to.”

“Then,” said the squirrel, “hop up on the stump, and I will get an extra plate for you.”  Susie did so.  It was the first party she had ever attended, but I can’t tell you what happened until to-morrow.

XII

SUSIE GOES TO A PARTY

Up and down the big oak tree scampered the squirrels, bringing nuts and acorns from hollows, where they had been hidden all winter.

“Hey, Bushytail!” cried the squirrel whom Susie knew, addressing another who was on the ground at the foot of the stump, “bring up a big leaf.”

“What do you want with a big leaf?” inquired the squirrel who was called Bushytail.

“Susie Littletail is going to stay to the party,” replied the squirrel who was giving it, “and I want the leaf for a plate for her.  She will need a large one.”

Up the old stump climbed Bushytail with the leaf in his mouth, and he put it in a vacant place.  The stump was quite large enough for the squirrels and rabbit to move about upon and still leave room for the table to be set.  Susie saw the squirrels placing nut meats on the different plates and putting oak-leaf tea into the acorn cups.  Suddenly the squirrel whom Susie knew and whose name was Mrs. Lightfoot, exclaimed: 

“There!  I never thought of that!”

“Thought of what?” asked Susie.

“Why, we haven’t anything that you like to eat.  You don’t care for nuts, do you?”

“Not very much,” answered Susie, who wanted to be polite, yet she still wanted to tell the truth.

“I thought so,” spoke Mrs. Lightfoot.  “Whatever shall I do?  I’ve asked you to the party and now there is nothing you like.  It’s too bad, for I want you to have a good time!”

“I—­I could go to the cabbage-field store and get some leaves, and I could bring some carrots and eat them,” suggested Susie.