CHAPTER II.

THE SQUIRRELS.

IN front of Mr. Corwin's house there was a grove of trees, some of them almost two hundred years old.

There were a tulip tree, and two catalpas, and one English walnut, and three gnarled oaks, and a dozen elms, besides a hedge at the side of the house of three thorned acacia.

The branches of all these trees rose up higher than the house, and the leaves rustled so in the wind that it often sounded like rain.

There were some little animals in the trees about which I have not told you. Can you guess what they were? Little, nimble, striped red squirrels.

The trees were so old that they were full of holes, and these were the squirrels' home, where the fathers and mothers and little ones lived in summer and in winter.

When Bessie's mamma first moved to Corwin's Nest, she was awaked one morning by a funny chirping, which sounded almost like talking, it grew so loud and earnest.

"Hark!" she said to her husband. "What is that?"

Mr. Corwin sat up in bed, and listened too. Then he said, laughing:

"Why, it is the squirrels in the old trees. They are trying to sing."

"No," mamma said, "I should think they were quarrelling. I never knew there were any squirrels on the place."

"Oh, there are hundreds!" he answered, turning over for another nap. "They live on the pods of the acacia trees."

Mamma went to the window and peeped out, and presently she saw a little squirrel dart up the tree, carrying a nut in his mouth. Then a larger squirrel ran after the small one, making the same chirping sound which had awaked her.

"Oh, how funny!" she said, laughing to herself. "The little one has run off with his breakfast,—and his mother is going to punish him. She is scolding him already."

She pulled open the shutter, and looked away up in the top of the trees; but the nimble creatures had jumped from one bough to another, and she could only see an occasional whisk of their tails.

She was just commencing to dress when she saw, on one of the boughs close to the glass, a cunning little squirrel, sitting very quietly; his small, bright eyes peeping into the room.

"Oh! I wish Bessie were awake," she said.

You know Bessie was a baby then; and mamma put out her hand to make acquaintance with the pretty creature.

Since that time mamma and papa, too, had often been sorry that the squirrels had such a colony in the trees, because they ate some of the little birds. Still they looked very prettily chasing each other over the branches, running out to the end of one bough, and then jumping to the end of another.

In the fall they gathered a great many nuts, and acorns, and pods, with large acacia beans in them, and stowed them away in their homes. Then, when the ground was covered with snow, they could keep quiet in their deep holes without starving.

Sometimes in the morning, or toward night, they chattered away at a great rate. The lady used often to wonder what they were saying to each other.

As Bessie grew older, she loved dearly to stand at the window, and watch the squirrels with their long, bushy tails. She loved to hear her mamma tell stories about their funny neighbors in the trees. By and by I must tell you a story mamma told Bessie and Jamie, when the little girl was seven years old.

It was now the next day after the children went to the barn to see grandma feed the calf. There had been rain in the night; and mamma thought the ground too damp for them to venture out. Nurse was busy putting down a new carpet in one of the chambers; and the lady wanted to write a letter to her sister in England. She carried her portfolio into the opposite chamber, leaving Bessie to amuse her brother until it was time for his nap.

About an hour later, she went back to the nursery to get a stamped envelope. Bessie sat in her low rocking-chair, holding one of Miss Prim's children. It was very sick; and Jamie was the doctor who had come to give it medicine.

Just in front of them the shutter was folded back; and there on a bough close to the glass a bright-eyed squirrel was sitting, peeping anxiously into the room, and watching every movement.

Mamma stood a moment, watching the brisk little fellow. She saw that his eye was fixed on Bessie, and she wondered what he thought of her.

When she moved a little nearer the window, the squirrel whisked his bushy tail over his head and darted away.

"Are you having a good time?" mamma asked.

"Baby sick," cried Jamie, eagerly. "Doctor give medicine."

"I wish you'd let us take a bottle, mamma," urged Bessie. "We'll be sure not to break it."

The lady smilingly gave them an empty vial from the closet.

"May we put water in it, mamma?"

"Yes, dear, and give the babies as much as you please, but don't drink any yourselves."

"Are you going to write more letters, mamma?"

"Not much, Bessie; and, to reward you for being so good, I shall tell you a story, some time."

The children clapped their hands, exclaiming:—

"Please, mamma, come quick."

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