PRETTY PAWS, THE PINE SQUIRREL
ONE hot day Fuzzy-Wuzz had gone to sleep in a pine tree when he was
awakened by a little high-pitched bark, like the yap of a young fox.
He opened one eye cautiously. There on a limb higher up stood a
squirrel, scolding him for all she was worth. But she was not like the
gray squirrels he had seen. She was dark brown, and her under side,
and all four paws were a rich orange color. Her tail was bordered with
yellow.
It was Pretty Paws, the pine squirrel. She was a member of the Douglas
squirrel tribe, (named after the man who discovered them). She must
have considered the little bear an intruder, the way she scolded. Was
this her particular pine tree, he wondered?
His little black eyes twinkling, he climbed a little higher,--though he
was pretty near the top for even his small weight. At that she scolded
more angrily than ever, fairly rising into the air with the ferocity of
her barking. She was joined by her mate, who also barked at Fuzzy.
“Ha, ha!” thought the little bear, “there must be a reason for all this
noise they are making. I must find out what it is.” And he wondered if
such small creatures could really hurt a bear cub, as they were surely
threatening to do.
The wind, which had been blowing through the tree top, came to a rest,
and with that, Fuzzy caught a delightful odor. It was the odor of
mushrooms. Where could they be, away up here in the tree top, he asked
himself? He meant to find out, for of all the plants that grew in
those woods, he loved mushrooms best. He climbed a few steps higher.
The squirrels leapt to a branch below. They were now facing him, and
threatening to eat him alive.
He made a sudden rush at them, with a deep throated “Woof!” They
backed away. At that, his eyes twinkled more than ever. They were only
bluffing.
He climbed to the next limb,--the tree top swaying with his weight.
There, spread out along the limb in the sunshine, drying, he saw what
had smelled so wonderful,--a whole row of mushrooms. But how could they
have gotten away up there? For they were mushrooms that he had found on
the ground. He gobbled them greedily.
He thought he understood now why the squirrels had scolded so. These
were the mushrooms they had collected, and laid out to dry for winter
use. But they had been his mushrooms, he told himself, when they grew
on the ground beneath the tree. Never mind, he would make them his
again.
The children, attracted by the barking in the tree top, called their
father to tell them what it was. These pine squirrels, he explained,
were cousins to the red squirrels of the East.
Just now Pretty Paws and her mate were calling loudly for all their
friends and relatives to come and help them scare the cub away. But
Fuzzy munched right on, enjoying each mushroom in turn.
Almost instantly the woods resounded with the call notes of neighboring
pine squirrels, who were coming to see what the trouble was all
about,--for squirrels are mighty curious about all that is going on
about them. Some of them helped scold Fuzzy, others sang and trilled
almost like birds.
The first litters of young were out that afternoon, and some of these
orange-breasted sprites became so excited that they simply rushed up
and down their tree trunks, playing tag in joyous excitement.
“I’ll catch you, if you don’t shut up!” Fuzzy woofed at them as he
finished his feast and descended awkwardly, tail end first, till he
could drop from a lower branch like a fat little bag of flour.
But though he spent all that afternoon, and many another, chasing
Pretty Paws and her friends, as they came down to gather pine seeds and
insect larvæ, he never once succeeded in getting so much as a mouthful
of fur. Before he could grab them, they were safe on a limb, flirting
their tails saucily at him and calling him all sorts of names.
Later he saw Pretty Paws racing through the tree tops with a great
brown creature in hot pursuit. It was a pine marten, or sable,--a rare
animal for even those mountains. Fuzzy didn’t believe the squirrel had
a chance in the world.
He watched while Pretty Paws went leaping from branch to branch, and
from tree to tree, and the marten after her. As agile as herself, for
all his great size, was that marten. How it ended Fuzzy never knew, for
he could not follow fast enough. But if it wasn’t Pretty Paws herself
who barked at him next day, it was her twin sister.