Once upon a time a gentleman went out into a great forest, and cut away
the trees, and built there a very nice little cottage. It was set very
low on the ground, and had very large bow-windows, and so much of it was
glass that one could look through it on every side and see what was going
on in the forest. You could see the shadows of the fern-leaves, as they
flickered and wavered over the ground, and the scarlet partridge-berry
and wintergreen plums that matted round the roots of the trees, and
the bright spots of sunshine that fell through their branches and
went dancing about among the bushes and leaves at their roots. You
could see the little chipping sparrows and thrushes and robins and
bluebirds building their nests here and there among the branches, and
watch them from day to day as they laid their eggs and hatched their
young. You could also see red squirrels, and gray squirrels, and little
striped chip-squirrels, darting and springing about, here and there
and everywhere, running races with each other from bough to bough, and
chattering at each other in the gayest possible manner.
You may be sure that such a strange thing as a great mortal house for
human beings to live in did not come into this wild wood without making
quite a stir and excitement among the inhabitants that lived there
before. All the time it was building, there was the greatest possible
commotion in the breasts of all the older population; and there wasn’t
even a black ant, or a cricket, that did not have his own opinion about
it, and did not tell the other ants and crickets just what he thought the
world was coming to in consequence.
Old Mrs. Rabbit declared that the hammering and pounding made her
nervous, and gave her most melancholy forebodings of evil times. “Depend
upon it, children,” she said to her long-eared family, “no good will come
to us from this establishment. Where man is, there comes always trouble
for us poor rabbits.”
The old chestnut-tree, that grew on the edge of the woodland ravine,
drew a great sigh which shook all his leaves, and expressed it as his
conviction that no good would ever come of it,—a conviction that at once
struck to the heart of every chestnut-burr. The squirrels talked together
of the dreadful state of things that would ensue. “Why!” said old Father
Gray, “it’s evident that Nature made the nuts for us; but one of these
great human creatures will carry off and gormandize upon what would keep
a hundred poor families of squirrels in comfort.” Old Ground-mole said it
did not require very sharp eyes to see into the future, and it would just
end in bringing down the price of real estate in the whole vicinity,
so that every decent-minded and respectable quadruped would be obliged
to move away;—for his part, he was ready to sell out for anything he
could get. The bluebirds and bobolinks, it is true, took more cheerful
views of matters; but then, as old Mrs. Ground-mole observed, they were
a flighty set,—half their time careering and dissipating in the Southern
States,—and could not be expected to have that patriotic attachment
to their native soil that those had who had grubbed in it from their
earliest days.
“This race of man,” said the old chestnut-tree, “is never ceasing in
its restless warfare on Nature. In our forest solitudes, hitherto, how
peacefully, how quietly, how regularly has everything gone on! Not a
flower has missed its appointed time of blossoming, or failed to perfect
its fruit. No matter how hard has been the winter, how loud the winds
have roared, and how high the snow-banks have been piled, all has come
right again in spring. Not the least root has lost itself under the
snows, so as not to be ready with its fresh leaves and blossoms when
the sun returns to melt the frosty chains of winter. We have storms
sometimes that threaten to shake everything to pieces,—the thunder
roars, the lightning flashes, and the winds howl and beat; but, when
all is past, everything comes out better and brighter than before,—not
a bird is killed, not the frailest flower destroyed. But man comes,
and in one day he will make a desolation that centuries cannot repair.
Ignorant boor that he is, and all incapable of appreciating the glorious
works of Nature, it seems to be his glory to be able to destroy in a
few hours what it was the work of ages to produce. The noble oak, that
has been cut away to build this contemptible human dwelling, had a life
older and wiser than that of any man in this country. That tree has
seen generations of men come and go. It was a fresh young tree when
Shakespeare was born; it was hardly a middle-aged tree when he died; it
was growing here when the first ship brought the white men to our shores,
and hundreds and hundreds of those whom they call bravest, wisest,
strongest,—warriors, statesmen, orators, and poets,—have been born,
have grown up, lived, and died, while yet it has outlived them all. It
has seen more wisdom than the best of them; but two or three hours of
brutal strength sufficed to lay it low. Which of these dolts could make
a tree? I’d like to see them do anything like it. How noisy and clumsy
are all their movements,—chopping, pounding, rasping, hammering! And,
after all, what do they build? In the forest we do everything so quietly.
A tree would be ashamed of itself that could not get its growth without
making such a noise and dust and fuss. Our life is the perfection of good
manners. For my part, I feel degraded at the mere presence of these human
beings; but, alas! I am old;—a hollow place at my heart warns me of the
progress of decay, and probably it will be seized upon by these rapacious
creatures as an excuse for laying me as low as my noble green brother.”
In spite of all this disquiet about it, the little cottage grew and was
finished. The walls were covered with pretty paper, the floors carpeted
with pretty carpets; and, in fact, when it was all arranged, and the
garden walks laid out, and beds of flowers planted around, it began to be
confessed, even among the most critical, that it was not after all so bad
a thing as was to have been feared.
A black ant went in one day and made a tour of exploration up and down,
over chairs and tables, up the ceilings and down again, and, coming out,
wrote an article for the Crickets’ Gazette, in which he described the new
abode as a veritable palace. Several butterflies fluttered in and sailed
about and were wonderfully delighted, and then a bumble-bee and two or
three honey-bees, who expressed themselves well pleased with the house,
but more especially enchanted with the garden. In fact, when it was found
that the proprietors were very fond of the rural solitudes of Nature, and
had come out there for the purpose of enjoying them undisturbed,—that
they watched and spared the anemones, and the violets, and bloodroots,
and dog’s-tooth violets, and little woolly rolls of fern that began to
grow up under the trees in spring,—that they never allowed a gun to be
fired to scare the birds, and watched the building of their nests with
the greatest interest,—then an opinion in favor of human beings began
to gain ground, and every cricket and bird and beast was loud in their
praise.
“Mamma,” said young Tit-bit, a frisky young squirrel, to his mother one
day, “why won’t you let Frisky and me go into that pretty new cottage to
play?”
“My dear,” said his mother, who was a very wary and careful old squirrel,
“how can you think of it? The race of man are full of devices for traps
and pitfalls, and who could say what might happen, if you put yourself in
their power? If you had wings like the butterflies and bees, you might
fly in and out again, and so gratify your curiosity; but, as matters
stand, it’s best for you to keep well out of their way.”
“But mother, there is such a nice, good lady lives there! I believe
she is a good fairy, and she seems to love us all so; she sits in the
bow-window and watches us for hours, and she scatters corn all round at
the roots of the tree for us to eat.”
“She is nice enough,” said the old mother-squirrel, “if you keep far
enough off; but I tell you, you can’t be too careful.”
Now this good fairy that the squirrels discoursed about was a nice little
old lady that the children used to call Aunt Esther, and she was a dear
lover of birds and squirrels, and all sorts of animals, and had studied
their little ways till she knew just what would please them; and so she
would every day throw out crumbs for the sparrows, and little bits of
bread and wool and cotton to help the birds that were building their
nests, and would scatter corn and nuts for the squirrels; and while she
sat at her work in the bow-window she would smile to see the birds flying
away with the wool, and the squirrels nibbling their nuts. After a while
the birds grew so tame that they would hop into the bow-window, and eat
their crumbs off the carpet.
“There, mamma,” said Tit-bit and Frisky, “only see! Jenny Wren and Cock
Robin have been in at the bow-window, and it didn’t hurt them, and why
can’t we go?”
“Well, my dears,” said old Mother Squirrel, “you must do it very
carefully: never forget that you haven’t wings like Jenny Wren and Cock
Robin.”
So the next day Aunt Esther laid a train of corn from the roots of the
trees to the bow-window, and then from the bow-window to her work-basket,
which stood on the floor beside her; and then she put quite a handful of
corn in the work-basket, and sat down by it, and seemed intent on her
sewing. Very soon, creep, creep, creep, came Tit-bit and Frisky to the
window, and then into the room, just as sly and as still as could be,
and Aunt Esther sat just like a statue for fear of disturbing them.
They looked all around in high glee, and when they came to the basket it
seemed to them a wonderful little summer-house, made on purpose for them
to play in. They nosed about in it, and turned over the scissors and the
needle-book, and took a nibble at her white wax, and jostled the spools,
meanwhile stowing away the corn each side of their little chops, till
they both of them looked as if they had the mumps.
At last Aunt Esther put out her hand to touch them, when, whisk-frisk,
out they went, and up the trees, chattering and laughing before she had
time even to wink.
But after this they used to come in every day, and when she put corn in
her hand and held it very still they would eat out of it; and, finally,
they would get into her hand, until one day she gently closed it over
them, and Frisky and Tit-bit were fairly caught.
O, how their hearts beat! but the good fairy only spoke gently to them,
and soon unclosed her hand and let them go again. So, day after day, they
grew to have more and more faith in her, till they would climb into her
work-basket, sit on her shoulder, or nestle away in her lap as she sat
sewing. They made also long exploring voyages all over the house, up and
through all the chambers, till finally, I grieve to say, poor Frisky came
to an untimely end by being drowned in the water-tank at the top of the
house.
The dear good fairy passed away from the house in time, and went to
a land where the flowers never fade, and the birds never die; but the
squirrels still continue to make the place a favorite resort.
[Illustration]
“In fact, my dear,” said old Mother Red one winter to her mate, “what is
the use of one’s living in this cold, hollow tree, when these amiable
people have erected this pretty cottage where there is plenty of room
for us and them too? Now I have examined between the eaves, and there
is a charming place where we can store our nuts, and where we can whip
in and out of the garret, and have the free range of the house; and,
say what you will, these humans have delightful ways of being warm and
comfortable in winter.”
So Mr. and Mrs. Red set up housekeeping in the cottage, and had no end
of nuts and other good things stored up there. The trouble of all this
was, that, as Mrs. Red was a notable body, and got up to begin her
housekeeping operations, and woke up all her children, at four o’clock in
the morning, the good people often were disturbed by a great rattling and
fuss in the walls, while yet it seemed dark night. Then sometimes, too,
I grieve to say, Mrs. Squirrel would give her husband vigorous curtain
lectures in the night, which made him so indignant that he would rattle
off to another quarter of the garret to sleep by himself; and all this
broke the rest of the worthy people who built the house.
What is to be done about this we don’t know. What would you do about it?
Would you let the squirrels live in your house, or not? When our good
people come down of a cold winter morning, and see the squirrels dancing
and frisking down the trees, and chasing each other so merrily over the
garden-chair between them, or sitting with their tails saucily over their
backs, they look so jolly and jaunty and pretty that they almost forgive
them for disturbing their night’s rest, and think that they will not do
anything to drive them out of the garret to-day. And so it goes on; but
how long the squirrels will rent the cottage in this fashion, I’m sure I
dare not undertake to say.