Doc isn’t even sure why he did it. For days afterwards, people would talk about it, then smile and shake their heads and just say “Oh, that Doc…”

The whole thing came up on the spur of the moment. Doc and Mrs. Doc were planning to go out of town for a few days and needed several hundred dollars in cash, so Doc dropped by the bank to take it out.

He drew Ardis Richardson as his teller, after he wound his way through the bank’s roped rat maze, and told her how much he needed.

Then, on an impulse, he leaned forward and whispered, “Ardis, I need that in small, unmarked bills, please.”

“Unmarked, Doc?”

“My squirrel’s life depends on it.”

Ardis’s mouth dropped open. That should have stopped Doc, but it didn’t.

“They said if I wanted to see him alive again, the bills would have to be unmarked.”

She stared.

“Have you ever seen how cute he is when he sits up and eats a nut and his whiskers twitch? I mean, right now I can picture his big fluffy tail and those eyes … those eyes…. Oh my…”

“Doc … I didn’t know,” she said.

He nodded sadly. “I can hardly bear looking at his little squirrel bed, sitting there empty, and his squirrel food dish, with only half his meal gone. I really have no choice.”

Ardis gave him the money. The sheriff came by Doc’s office to make sure everything was all right. Mrs. Miller across the street from Steve’s house sent a five-dollar donation to Doc to help rescue the squirrel. Pop Walker down at the Rest of Your Life home volunteered to get his gun and polish off every squirrel-napper in the county.

Doc, you see, doesn’t have a squirrel.

Mrs. Doc thought this weekend away from home came not a moment too soon.