A hawk, flashing the old gold of his pinions in the face of the sun,
flings down a shrill, husky cry of intense scorn; a jay scolds like a
shrew; from his safe isolation in the midwater, a loon taunts you and
the awakening winds with his wild laughter; there is a jeer in the
chuckling diminuendo of the woodchuck's whistle, a taunt in the fox's
gasping bark as he scurries unseen behind the veil of night; and a scoff
on hunters and hounds and cornfield owners is flung out through the
gloaming in the raccoon's quavering cry. But of all the wild world's
inhabitants, feathered or furred, none outdo the saucy red squirrel in
taunts, gibes, and mockery of their common enemy.
He is inspired with derision that is expressed in every tone and
gesture. His agile form is vibrant with it when he flattens himself
against a tree-trunk, toes and tail quivering with intensity of ridicule
as fully expressed in every motion as in his nasal snicker and throaty
chuckle or in the chattering jeer that he pours down when he has
attained a midway or topmost bough and cocks his tail with a saucy curve
above his arched back.
When he persistently retires within his wooden tower, he still peers out
saucily from his lofty portal, and if he disappears you may yet hear the
smothered chuckle wherewith he continues to tickle his ribs. When in a
less scornful mood, he is at least supremely indifferent, deigning to
regard you with but the corner of an eye, while he rasps a nut or chips
a cone.
Ordinarily you must be philosophical or godly to suffer gibes with
equanimity, but you need be neither to endure the scoffs of this buffoon
of the woods and waysides. They only amuse you as they do him, and you
could forgive these tricks tenfold multiplied if he had no worse, and
love him if he were but half as good as he is beautiful.
He exasperates when he cuts off your half-grown apples and pears in
sheer wantonness, injuring you and profiting himself only in the
pleasure of seeing and hearing them fall. But you are heated with a
hotter wrath when he reveals his chief wickedness, and you catch sight
of him stealthily skulking along the leafy by-paths of the branches,
silently intent on evil deeds and plotting the murder of callow
innocents. Quite noiseless now, himself, his whereabouts are only
indicated by the distressful outcry of the persecuted and sympathizing
birds and the fluttering swoops of their futile attacks upon the
marauder. Then when you see him gliding away, swift and silent as a
shadow, bearing a half-naked fledgeling in his jaws, if this is the
first revelation of such wickedness, you are as painfully surprised as
if you had discovered a little child in some wanton act of cruelty.
It seems quite out of all fitness of nature that this merry fellow
should turn murderer, that this dainty connoisseur of choice nuts and
tender buds, and earliest discoverer and taster of the maple's
sweetness, should become so grossly carnivorous and savagely
bloodthirsty. But anon he will cajole you with pretty ways into
forgetfulness and forgiveness of his crimes. You find yourself offering,
in extenuation of his sins, confession of your own offenses. Have not
you, too, wrought havoc among harmless broods and brought sorrow to
feathered mothers and woodland homes? Is he worse than you, or are you
better than he? Against his sins you set his beauty and tricksy manners,
and for them would not banish him out of the world nor miss the
incomparable touch of wild life that his presence gives it.