THE HOME IN THE HIGH HICKORY
BANNERTAIL was very well satisfied with the home in the red oak, and
assumed that thither he should bring his bride. But he had not reckoned
with certain big facts--that is, laws--for the reason that he had never
before met them. The female wild thing claims all authority in matters
of the home, and in the honeymoon time no wild mate would even challenge
her right to rule.
So the red oak den was then and there abandoned. Search in the hickory
grove resulted in a find. A Flicker had dug into the trunk of a tall
hickory where it was dead. Once through the outer shell the inner wood
was rotten punk, too easy for a Flicker to work in, but exactly right
and easy for a Graysquirrel. Here, then, the two set to work digging out
the soft rotten wood till the chamber was to their liking, much bigger
than that the Woodpecker would have made.
[Illustration]
March, the Wakening-moon, was spent in making the home and lining the
nest. Bark strips, pine-needles, fine shreds of plants that had defied
the wind and snow, rags of clothes left by winter woodmen, feathers,
tufts of wool, and many twigs of basswood with their swollen buds, and
slippery-elm, and one or two--yes, Silvergray could not resist the
impulse--fat acorns found from last year's crop and hidden now deep in
the lining of the nest. There can be no happier time for any wild and
lusty live thing than when working with a loving mate at the building
and making of the nest. Their world is one of joy--fine weather, fair
hunting, with food enough, overwhelming instincts at their flush of
compulsion--all gratified in sanest, fullest measure. This sure is joy,
and Bannertail met each yellow sun-up with his loudest song of praise,
as he watched it from the highest lookout of his home tree. His "_qua_"
song reached afar, and in its vibrant note expressed the happy time, and
expressing it, intensified it in himself. There seemed no ill to mar the
time. Even the passing snow-storms of the month seemed trifles; they
were little more than landmarks on the joyful way.
_NEW RIVALS_