THE LITTLE SQUIRRELS GO TO SCHOOL
THESE are among the lessons that a mother Squirrel, by example, teaches,
and that in case of failure are emphasized by many little reproofs of
voice, or even blows:
Clean your coat, and extra-clean your tail; fluff it out, try its trig
suppleness, wave it, plume it, comb it, clean it; but ever remember it,
for it is your beauty and your life.
[Illustration]
When there is danger on the ground, such as the trampling of heavy feet,
do not go to spy it out, but hide. If near a hole, pop in; if on a big
high limb, lie flat and still as death. Do not go to it. Let it come to
you, if it will.
In the air, if there is danger near, as from Hawks, do not stop until
you have at least got into a dense thicket, or, better still, a hole.
If you find a nut when you are not hungry, bury it for future use.
Nevertheless this lesson counted for but little now, as all last year's
nuts were gone, and this year's far ahead.
If you must travel on the ground, stop every little while at some high
place to look around, and fail not then each time to fluff and jerk your
tail.
When in the distant limbs you see something that may be friend or foe,
keep out of sight, but flirt your white tail tip in his view. If it be a
Graycoat, it will answer with the same, the wigwag: "I'm a Squirrel,
too."
[Illustration: THE LITTLE SQUIRRELS AT SCHOOL]
Learn and practise, also, the far jumps from tree to tree. You'll
surely need them some day. They are the only certain answer to the
Red-eyed Fury that lives on Mice, but that can kill Squirrels, too, if
he catches them; that climbs and jumps, but cannot jump so far as the
Graycoats, and dare not fall from high, for he has no plumy tail,
nothing but a useless little tag.
Drink twice a day from the running stream, never from the big pond in
which the grinning Pike and mighty Snapper lie in wait. Go not in the
heat of the day, for then the Blacksnake is lurking near, and quicker is
he even than a Squirrel, on the ground.
Go not at dusk, for then the Fox and the Mink are astir. Go not by
night, for then is the Owl on the war-path, silent as a shadow; he is
far more to be feared than the swish-winged Hawk. Drink then at sunrise
and before sunset, and ever from a solid log or stone which affords
good footing for a needed sudden jump. And remember ever that safety is
in the tree tops--in this and in lying low.
These were the lessons they slowly learned, not at any stated time or
place, but each when the present doings gave it point. Brownhead was
quick and learned almost overfast; and his tail responding to his daily
care was worthy of a grown-up. Lithe, graceful Nyek-nyek too, was
growing wood-wise. Cray was quick for a time. He would learn well at a
new lesson, then, devising some method of his own, would go ahead and
break the rules. His mother's warning "_Quare_" held him back not at
all. And his father's onslaught with a nip of powerful teeth only
stirred him to rebellious fight.
_THE LOPPING OF THE WAYWARD BRANCH_