The Squirrel Who Shared

Every autumn, a squirrel named Nutkin gathered acorns all day long, tucking them away in a cozy hole in her favorite oak tree.

By the time the first snow fell, Nutkin had gathered more acorns than any squirrel in the whole forest - a whole winter's worth, safely stored away.

One freezing afternoon, a small sparrow landed on the branch outside her hole, shivering, feathers puffed up against the cold.

"I can't find any seeds anywhere," the sparrow said softly. "The snow covered everything before I could gather enough."

Nutkin looked at her huge pile of acorns, then at the shivering little bird, and felt a small, uncomfortable tug in her chest.

"If I share, will I have enough left for myself?" she wondered, counting her acorns again, just to be sure.

She counted them three times. Each time, she noticed the same thing - she truly had more than she could ever eat alone before spring came.

"Here," Nutkin said, pushing a small pile of acorns toward the sparrow. "Winter is long. No one should be hungry through all of it."

The sparrow's eyes went wide. "Are you certain? These took you all autumn to gather."

"I'm certain," said Nutkin, and found, to her surprise, that giving them away didn't feel like losing anything at all.

Word travels fast in a forest. By the next week, a rabbit low on winter greens and a family of field mice had all found their way to Nutkin's tree.

Each time, Nutkin checked her pile, found she still had enough, and shared a little more.

That winter turned out to be the warmest one Nutkin could remember - not because the weather was any kinder, but because her little oak tree had become the friendliest place in the whole forest.

And when spring finally came, Nutkin still had a few acorns left over - plenty enough to plant new oak trees, so there would be even more acorns to share come next winter.