The Squirrel and the Mink
The village animals were building a new town center, and Squirrel and Mink offered to help.
“We need someone who can figure out how many logs we’ll need,” Porcupine, the supervisor, told the crowd.
Mink and Squirrel both volunteered. Squirrel was given the job, since he was smarter than Mink.
While he was counting up how many logs they’d need, Beaver said, “We need somebody fast to run to the top of the mountain and tell the other workers we need at least four more loads of wood before the snow comes in this evening.”
“I will,” Squirrel said. “I’m very fast and can get there with the message quickly.”
So Beaver sent Squirrel to be the messenger. Mink finished figuring out how many logs would be required to build the town center. Then he started helping on the building.
While squirrel was running up the mountain he saw two other squirrels racing up and down an oak tree gathering acorns, seeing who could gather the most. He wanted to show them how much faster he could do it, so he asked if he could join the race. Soon he was gathering more acorns than either of them.
While he was atop the tree he met an eagle with a broken wing. Eagle asked Squirrel if he’d run back to the next village and get Dr. Owl.
Squirrel was very compassionate and could see that Eagle needed help. So he quit the game with the other two squirrels, decided the message to get more wood could wait, and ran back toward town.
Soon Squirrel began to tire. He stopped by a stream for a drink of water and took a short nap. Finally he woke up, remembered Eagle and ran back to town.
Beaver saw him running into town. “Did you notify the workers to bring in more wood?” he asked.
“Not yet, because I saw Eagle with a broken wing and came back to notify Dr. Owl.”
“Dr. Owl was notified by Crow several hours ago and has already gone to help Eagle. We depended on you to get word to the others to bring more wood. Now our production has come to a halt and we won’t get the town center framed before the snow comes.”
Just then Dr. Owl came flying in with Eagle wrapped in a sack hanging from his beak. Concerned, Squirrel ran over and asked how Eagle was.
“We had to amputate his wing,” said Dr. Owl. “If we’d have known about it about an hour earlier we could have probably saved it.”
As evening came it was time for the town to vote for their mayor. Mink and Squirrel both decided to run for mayor.
“Vote for me,” Squirrel said. “I am smarter than Mink, faster than Mink and truly care about my fellow creatures of the woods.”
“I may not be as fast or as smart as squirrel, and I don’t question his sincere desire to help others,” Mink said, “but you can always depend on me.”
The town unanimously voted for their new mayor, Mink.
Buscrat’s Fables are simple stories that each a moral. Buscrat welcomes you to visit buscratsfables.com for more fables and welcomes your comments, suggestions and requests.
