A LITTLE GENTLEMANAll the four-footed folk in the neighborhood agreed that Dickie DeerMouse was well worth knowing. Throughout Pleasant Valley there was noone else so gentle as he.To be sure, Jasper Jay wore beautiful--perhaps even gaudy--clothes; buthis manners were so shocking that nobody would ever call him agentleman.As for Dickie Deer Mouse, he was always tastefully dressed in fawn colorand white. And except sometimes in the spring, when he needed a newcoat, he was a real joy to see. For he both looked and acted like awell-bred little person.It is too bad that there were certain reasons--which will appearlater--why some of his feathered neighbors did not like him. But eventhey had to admit that Dickie was a spick-and-span young chap.Wherever he was white he was white as snow. And many of the wild peoplewondered how he could scamper so fast through the woods and always keephis white feet spotless.Possibly it was because his mother had taught him the way when he wasyoung; for his feet--and the under side of him--were white even when hewas just a tiny fellow, so young that the top side of him was grayinstead of fawn colored.How his small white feet would twinkle as he frisked about in theshadows of the woods and ran like a squirrel through the trees! And howhis sharp little cries would break the wood-silence as he called to hisfriends in a brisk chatter, which sounded like that of the squirrels,only ever so far away!In many other ways Dickie Deer Mouse was like Frisky Squirrel himself.Dickie's idea of what a good home ought to be was much the same asFrisky's: they both thought that the deserted nest of one of the bigCrow family made as fine a house as any one could want. And theycouldn't imagine that any food could possibly be better than nuts,berries and grain.