He Called Him Jimmy

 The winters in Iowa were so cold that the small squirrel was worried that there wouldn't be enough food to eat. The snow was so very deep and the travelers seldom came by this way anymore. It seemed like the old wagon had been there for years. He scurried among the trees in the timber and finally found a walnut that had been hidden by another in a knot of an old oak tree. He thought he should eat it slowly to make it last as long as he could. The wind was howling and blowing snow into the fur on his tail until it seemed to freeze in place.

He had looked and looked for some shelter, but had found none that was his size. Some squirrels scolded him and blocked the opening of a tree that he thought he could fit into. They said their family was too big to feed as it was so he was told to go on about his business, whatever that was. He finished his small meal under the old wagon trying to decide where he could find shelter if that was at all possible. The snow was swirling around him. It was so hard to see. 

As he looked about he thought for sure he was hearing things. Could that be the sound of human voices? Surely not in this weather. The wagon trains waited until the spring floods were over before moving west. No, he heard the mooing of a cow, he knew he did.

Jimmy was sitting in the timber watching the lost and almost frozen squirrel. He had watched the head of the neighborhood squirrel family turn him away. He also had been turned away from their door. They said he looked different than they did so he couldn't come in and share their nuts. They had slammed the door on him as well, but the squirrel that was taking shelter under the long forgotten wagon was the same color as the the neighborhood squirrels. "I guess they just are kind of selfish or maybe afraid that they too will someday be homeless with no food. I have a few sunflower seeds left from the last wagon that went by. I watched the old guy hammer this wooden feeder to my tree and put some seeds in it the day before they left." He made a noise in his throat remembering the man's wife scolding him for being wasteful of the seeds. She wanted to plant them in the spring. She said they were happy flowers and made folks smile even when they didn't want to. I can remember him calling me Jimmy as he threw me some seeds. I liked that name so I kept it. I had never had a name before."

He didn't know what a smile was, but he loved the taste of these seeds and was grateful to the man that left them. He had just a few left, but decided that he would share with the stranger if he needed to.

His ears perked up and he quit nibbling on his seeds and listened and watched as did the squirrel under the wagon. He heard a cow mooing. Surely there weren't travelers coming through this way in the dead of winter. They might freeze but on the other hand, they might have food. The other travelers did and they built fires to cook their food. He quickly turned towards the sound of the wagon. It was a cow that's for sure and a wagon and one man. He was traveling all by himself! He looked a bit familiar like he had seen him before. This man didn't look too healthy. He seemed to have trouble walking.

"Oh no. This is not good. He will need help for sure. I don't want to, but I'm going to jump down from my perch and go get the strange colored squirrel. We need to follow the wagon. Together we might be able to keep the man warm if he doesn't have a fire."

A man named Nathan Banister may have passed by these two hungry and forgotten squirrels on his way to see his son, George, W. Banister Cherokee, Iowa. The year may have been 1859.