The life story of a squirrel — A Closer Reading

too much for me. I took my courage in both fore-paws, set my teeth, and launched myself desperately into the air. I came down flat on my little white stomach, but as at that time I weighed rather less than four ounces, and the bough below was soft and springy, I did not knock the wind out of myself, as one of you humans would have done if you had fallen in the same way.

Mother gave a little snort. She did not approve of my methods, and told me I should spread my legs wider and make more use of my tail. Then she turned and gave a low call to Rusty to follow.

Even at that early age—we were barely a month old—Rusty was a heavier and rather slower-going squirrel than I. But he already showed that bull-dog courage which was so strong a trait all through his after-life. He crawled deliberately to the very end of the branch, then simply let go and tumbled all in a heap right on the top of us. It was extremely lucky for him that mother was so quick as she was. She made a rapid bound forward, and caught her blundering son by the loose skin at the back of his neck just in time to save him from going headlong to the ground, quite fifty feet below.

She panted with fright as she lifted him to a place of safety with a little shake.

Rusty looked a trifle sulky, and mother gave him an affectionate pat to soothe him down.

Then she told us to follow her back along the branch, and she would show us how to climb up the trunk home again. She sent me first.

I had hardly reached the trunk end of the bough when I heard mother utter a cry which I had never heard her give before. It was a low sharp call. Oddly enough, I seemed to know exactly what it meant. At once I lay flat upon the bough, here quite thick enough to hide my small body, and crouched down, making myself as small as possible. At the same instant mother seized Rusty by the scruff of his neck, and with one splendid leap sprang right up on to the wide, thick bough on the flat surface of which our home was built. In a few seconds she came back for me, and before I knew what was the matter I, too, was safe in the nest, alongside Rusty and my sister, little Hazel.

Mother gave a low note of warning that none of us should move or make any noise; and you may be sure we all obeyed, for something in her manner frightened us greatly. Presently we heard heavy footfalls down below rustling in the dry pine-needles. We sat closer than ever, hardly daring to breathe. The footsteps stopped just below our tree, and a loud rough voice, that made every nerve in my body quiver, shouted out something. From the sound of it we could tell that the speaker was peering right up between the boughs into our tree, and we knew without the slightest doubt he had discovered our drey. He must have spoken loud, even for a human, for his companion gave a sharp ‘S-s-sh!’ as if he were afraid that some one else might overhear and come down upon them. It could not have been of us he was afraid, for we, poor trembling, palpitating little things, lay huddled together, hardly daring to breathe.

The two tormentors turned away a few paces after a few lower-toned remarks, and I began to think they had gone, when——

Crash, a great jagged lump of stone came hurtling up within a yard of our home, frightening us all abominably.

Mother crouched with us closer than ever into our frail little house of sticks, which was not made to stand the force of stones.

Almost immediately there fell another mass of whizzing stone, even nearer than the first. It shore away a large tassel from the bough just overhead, and this fell right on the top of us, frightening Hazel so much that she jumped completely out of the nest, and, if mother had not been after her as quick as lightning, she must have fallen over the edge and probably tumbled right down to the ground and been killed at once. Even a squirrel, particularly a young one, cannot fall fifty feet in safety.