Nutmeg was the runt of the litter, the smallest squirrel in the largest park in the city called New York. He was too small and too slow to get many acorns before the bigger and faster squirrels did. By the time he got to the acorns, they were usually gone. Nutmeg could barely find enough to eat, let alone store extra for winter. With winter soon approaching, he knew he was in trouble. He feared he might starve unless he could find more food, and soon.
One crisp autumn morning, Nutmeg was in the park, darting about as squirrels do, looking for any acorns, nuts, or morsels of food missed by the other squirrels. Under a majestic oak, he spied a group of school children having a picnic lunch at a table, with a bucket of peanuts close by.
Peanuts! Nutmeg had an idea: he would charm the children with his cheeky antics to get some of their peanuts. He climbed the tree and turned somersaults, danced, chirped, and swung through the branches in a squirrelly display of acrobatic prowess.
The children soon spotted him, and they cheered and whistled and clapped their hands in delight. They threw him peanuts as a reward. Nutmeg filled his cheeks as full as he could and scampered back to his cozy tree hollow nest to deposit the nuts.
The next day, the children returned to the park with another bucket of peanuts, and Nutmeg repeated the show. Again, the children rewarded him with claps, cheers, and peanuts. Nutmeg made trip after trip to his nest, his mouth full of nuts and his heart full of gratitude for the children’s bounty.
This repeated every day for several weeks. The days got colder, the leaves on the trees turned bolder, then fell until there were no more. All the while, the children threw him nuts, nuts, and more nuts–far more than he could store. He didn’t want any to go to waste, so he ate one peanut for every one he stored.
He put on weight, more and more with every passing day. Before long, Nutmeg, once the smallest, most runty squirrel in the park, was the largest, most pudgy squirrel in the park. And perhaps the entire world.
When the first snowflakes fell in December, Nutmeg was so plump that he could barely fit inside his cozy tree hollow nest. He lay on his bed of straw and sighed, his belly full, his heart content, and his nest overflowing with nuts. He knew he would have more than enough food for the winter and into the spring. The life of a pudgy squirrel was going to be a good life–a very good life indeed!
