HOW THE SQUIRRELS GOT TO THE MILL AT THE RAPIDS--AND WHAT HAPPENED
TO VELVET-PAW.
Nimble-foot and Velvet-paw were so frightened by the sight of the red
squirrel, that they ran down the tree without once looking back to
see what had become of poor Silver-nose; indeed, the cowards, instead
of waiting for their poor sister, fled through the forest as if an
army of red squirrels were behind them. At last they reached the banks
of the lake, and jumping into the water, swam down the current till
they came to a place called the "Narrow," where the wide lake poured
its waters through a deep rocky channel, not more than a hundred yards
wide; here the waters became so rough and rapid, that our little swimmers
thought it wisest to go on shore. They scrambled up the steep rocky
bank, and found themselves on a wide open space, quite free from trees,
which they knew must be one of the great clearings the traveller squirrel
had spoken of. There was a very high building on the water's edge that
they thought must be the mill that the chitmunks had told them they
would come to; and they were in good spirits, as they now expected
to find plenty of good things laid up for them to eat, so they went
in by the door of the mill.
"Dear me, what a dust there is!" said Nimble, looking about him; "I think
it must be snowing."
"Snow does not fall in hot weather," said Velvet; "besides, this white
powder is very sweet and nice;" and she began to lick some of the flour
that lay in the cracks of the floor.
"I have found some nice seeds here," said Nimble, running to the top
of a sack that stood with the mouth untied; "these are better than
pine-kernels, and not so hard. We must have come to one of the great
grain-stores that our cousin told us of. Well, I am sure the people
are very kind to have laid up so many good things for us squirrels."
When they had eaten as much as they liked, they began to ran about
to see what was in the mill. Presently, a man came in, and they saw
him take one of the sacks of wheat, and pour it into a large upright
box, and in a few minutes there was a great noise--a sort of buzzing,
whirring, rumbling, dashing, and splashing--and away ran Velvet-paw
in a terrible fright, and scrambled up some beams and rafters to the
top of the wall, where she sat watching what was going on, trembling
all over; but finding that no harm happened to her, took courage, and
after a time ceased to be afraid. She saw Nimble perched on a cross-beam
looking down very intently at something; so she came out of her corner
and ran to him, and asked what he was looking at.
"There is a great black thing here," said he, "I cannot tell what to
make of him at all; it turns round and round, and dashes the water
about, making a fine splash." (This was the water-wheel.)
"It looks very ugly indeed," said Velvet-paw, "and makes my head giddy
to look at it; let us go away. I want to find out what these two big
stones are doing," said she; "they keep rubbing against one another,
and making a great noise."
"There is nothing so wonderful in two big stones, my dear," said Nimble;
"I have seen plenty bigger than these in Stony Lake."
"But they did not move about as these do; and only look here at the
white stuff that is running down all the time into this great box.
Well, we shall not want for food for the rest of our lives; I wish
poor Silvy were with us to share in our good luck."
They saw a great many other strange things in the mill, and they thought
that the miller was a very funny-looking creature; but as they fancied
that he was grinding the wheat into flour for them, they were not much
afraid of him; they were more troubled at the sight of a black dog,
which spied them, out as they sat on the beams of the mill, and ran
about in a great rage, harking at them in a frightful way, and never
left off till the miller went out of the mill, when he went away with
his master, and did not return till the next day; but whenever he saw
the gray squirrels, this little dog, whose name was "Pinch," was sure
to set up his ears and tail, and snap and bark, showing all his sharp
white teeth in a very savage manner.
Not far from the mill was another building: this was the house the
miller lived in; and close by the house was a barn, a stable, a cow-shed,
and a sheep-pen, and there was a garden full of fruit and flowers,
and an orchard of apple-trees close by.
One day Velvet-paw ran up one of the apple-trees and began to eat an
apple; it looked very good, for it had a bright red cheek, but it was
hard and sour, not being ripe. "I do not like these big, sour berries,"
said she, making wry faces as she tried to get the bad taste out of
her mouth by wiping her tongue on her fore-paw. Nimble had found some
ripe currants; so he only laughed at poor Velvet for the trouble she
was in.
These little gray squirrels now led a merry life; they found plenty to eat
and drink, and would not have had a care in the world, if it had not been
for the noisy little dog Pinch, who let them have no quiet, barking and
baying at them whenever he saw them; and also for the watchful eyes of a
great tomcat, who was always prowling about the mill, or creeping round
the orchard and outhouses; so that with all their good food they were not
quite free from causes of fear, and no doubt sometimes wished themselves
safe back on the little rocky island, in their nest in the old oak-tree.
Time passed away--the wheat and the oats were now ripe and fit for the
scythe, for in Canada the settlers mow wheat with an instrument called a
"cradle scythe." The beautiful Indian corn was in bloom, and its long pale
green silken threads were waving in the summer breeze. The blue jays were
busy in the fields of wheat; so were the red-winged blackbirds, and the
sparrows, and many other birds, great and small; field-mice in dozens were
cutting the straw with their sharp teeth, and carrying off the grain to
their nests; and as to the squirrels and chitmunks, there were scores of
them--black, red, and gray--filling their cheeks with the grain, and
laying it out on the rail fences and on the top of the stumps to dry,
before they carried it away to their storehouses. And many a battle the
red and the black squirrels had, and sometimes the gray joined with the
red, to beat the black ones off the ground.
Nimble-foot and his sister kept out of these quarrels as much as they
could; but once they got a severe beating from the red squirrels for not
helping them to drive off the saucy black ones, which would carry away the
little heaps of wheat, as soon as they were dry.
"We do not mean to trouble ourselves with laying up winter stores," said
Nimble one day to his red cousins; "don't you see Peter, the miller's man,
has got a great waggon and horses, and is carting wheat into the barn for
us?"
The red squirrel opened his round eyes very wide at this speech. "Why,
Cousin Nimble," he said, "you are not so foolish as to think the miller
is harvesting that grain for your use. No, no, my friend; if you want
any, you must work as we do, or run the chance of starving in the winter."
Then Nimble told him what their cousin Blackie had said. "You were
wise fellows to believe such nonsense!" said the red squirrel. "These
mills and barns are all stored for the use of the miller and his family;
and what is more, my friend, I can tell you that men are no great friends
to us poor squirrels, and will kill us when they get the chance, and
begrudge us the grain we help ourselves to."
"Well, that is very stingy," said Velvet-paw; "I am sure there is enough
for men and squirrels too. However, I suppose all must live, so we
will let them have what we leave; I shall help myself after they have
stored it up in yonder barn."
"You had better do as we do, and make hay while the sun shines," said
the red squirrel.
"I would rather play in the sunshine, and eat what I want here," said
idle Velvet-paw, setting up her fine tail like a feather over her back,
as she ate an ear of corn.
"You are a foolish, idle thing, and will come to no good," said the
red squirrel. "I wonder where you were brought up?"
I am very sorry to relate that Velvet-paw did not come to a good end,
for she did not take the advice of her red cousin, to lay up provisions
during the harvest; but instead of that, she ate all day long, and
grew fat and lazy; and after the fields were all cleared, she went
to the mill one day, when the mill was grinding, and seeing a quantity
of wheat in the feeder of the mill, she ran up a beam and jumped down,
thinking to make a good dinner from the grain she saw; but it kept
sliding down and sliding down so fast, that she could not get one grain,
so at last she began to be frightened, and tried to get up again, but,
alas! this was not possible. She cried out to Nimble to help her; and
while he ran to look for a stick for her to raise herself up by, the
mill-wheel kept on turning, and the great stones went round faster
and faster, till poor Velvet-paw was crushed to death between them.
Nimble was now left all alone, and sad enough he was, you may suppose.
"Ah," said he, "idleness is the ruin of gray squirrels, as well as
men, so I will go away from this place, and try and earn an honest
living in the forest. I wish I had not believed all the fine tales
my cousin the black squirrel told me."
Then Nimble went away from the clearing, and once more resolved to
seek his fortune in the woods. He knew there were plenty of butter-nuts,
acorns, hickory-nuts, and beech-nuts, to be found, besides many sorts
of berries; and he very diligently set to work to lay up stores against
the coming winter.
As it was now getting cold at night, Nimble-foot thought it would be
wise to make himself a warm house; so he found out a tall hemlock-pine
that was very thick and bushy at the top; there was a forked branch
in the tree, with a hollow just fit for his nest. He carried twigs
of birch and beech, and over these he laid dry green moss, which he
collected on the north side of the cedar trees, and some long gray
moss that he found on the swamp maples, and then he stripped the silky
threads from the milk-weeds, and the bark of the cedar and birch-trees.
These he gnawed fine, and soon made a soft bed; he wove and twisted
the sticks, and roots, and mosses together, till the walls of his house
were quite thick, and he made a sort of thatch over the top with dry
leaves and long moss, with a round hole to creep in and out of.
Making this warm house took him many days' labour; but many strokes
will fell great oaks, so at last Nimble-foot's work came to an end,
and he had the comfort of a charming house to shelter him from the
cold season. He laid up a good store of nuts, acorns, and roots: some
he put in a hollow branch of the hemlock-tree close to his nest; some
he hid in a stump, and another store he laid under the roots of a mossy
cedar. When all this was done, he began to feel very lonely, and often
wished, no doubt, that he had had his sisters Silvy and Velvet-paw
with him, to share his nice warm house; but of Silvy he knew nothing,
and poor Velvet-paw was dead.
One fine moonlight night, as Nimble was frisking about on the bough of a
birch-tree, not very far from his house in the hemlock, he saw a canoe
land on the shore of the lake, and some Indians with an axe cut down some
bushes, and having cleared a small piece of ground, begin to sharpen the
ends of some long poles. These they stuck into the ground close together
in a circle; and having stripped some sheets of birch-bark from the birch
trees close by, they thatched the sides of the hut, and made a fire of
sticks inside. They had a dead deer in the canoe, and there were several
hares and black squirrels, the sight of which rather alarmed Nimble; for
he thought if they killed one sort of squirrel, they might another, and he
was very much scared at one of the Indians firing off a gun close by him.
The noise made him fall down to the ground, and it was a good thing that
it was dark among the leaves and grass where the trunk of the tree threw
its long shadow, so that the Indian did not see him, or perhaps he might
have loaded the gun again, and shot our little friend, and made soup of
him for his supper.
Nimble ran swiftly up a pine-tree, and was soon out of danger. While he
was watching some of the Indian children at play, he saw a girl come out
of the hut with a gray squirrel in her arms; it did not seem at all afraid
of her, but nestled to her shoulder, and even ate out of her hand; and
what was Nimble's surprise to see that this tame gray squirrel was none
other than his own pretty sister Silver-nose, whom he had left in the
hollow tree when they both ran away from the red squirrel. You may suppose
the sight of his lost companion was a joyful one; he waited for a long,
long time, till the fire went out, and all the Indians were fast asleep,
and little Silvy came out to play in the moonlight, and frisk about on the
dewy grass as she used to do. Then Nimble when he saw her, ran down the
tree, and came to her and rubbed his nose against her, and licked her soft
fur, and told her who he was, and how sorry he was for having left her in
so cowardly a manner, to be beaten by the red squirrel.
[Illustration: NIMBLE RECOVERING HIS SISTER.]
The good little Silvy told Nimble not to fret about what was past, and
then she asked him for her sister Velvet-paw. Nimble had a long sorrowful
tale to tell about the death of poor Velvet; and Silvy was much grieved.
Then in her turn she told Nimble all her adventures, and how she had been
caught by the Indian girl, and kept, and fed, and tamed, and had passed
her time very happily, if it had not been for thinking about her dear lost
companions. "But now," she said, "my dear brother, we will never part
again; you shall be quite welcome to share my cage, and my nice stores
of Indian corn, rice, and nuts, which my kind mistress gives me."
"I would not be shut up in a cage, not even for one day," said Nimble,
"for all the nice fruit and grain in Canada. I am a free squirrel, and
love my liberty. I would not exchange a life of freedom in these fine old
woods, for all the dainties in the world. So, Silvy, if you prefer a life
of idleness and ease to living with me in the forest, I must say good-bye
to you."
"But there is nothing to hurt us, my dear Nimble--no racoons, no foxes,
nor hawks, nor owls, nor weasels; if I see any hungry-looking birds or
beasts, I have a safe place to run to, and never need be hungry!"
"I would not lead a life like that, for the world," said Nimble. "I should
die of dulness; if there is danger in a life of freedom, there is pleasure
too, which you cannot enjoy, shut up in, a wooden cage, and fed at the
will of a master or mistress.--Well, I shall be shot if the Indians awake
and see me; so I shall be off."
Silvy looked very sorrowful; she did not like to part from her newly-found
brother, but she was unwilling to forego all the comforts and luxuries her
life of captivity afforded her.
"You will not tell the Indians where I live, I hope, Silvy, for they would
think it a fine thing to hunt me with their dogs, or shoot me down with
their bows and arrows."
At these words Silvy was overcome with grief, so jumping off from the log
on which she was standing, she said, "Nimble, I will go with you and share
all your perils, and we will never part again." She then ran into the
wigwam; and going softly to the little squaw, who was asleep, licked her
hands and face, as if she would say, "Good-bye, my good kind friend; I
shall not forget all your love for me, though I am going away from you for
ever."
Silvy then followed Nimble into the forest, and they soon reached his nice
comfortable nest in the tall hemlock-tree.
* * * * *
"Nurse, I am glad Silvy went away with Nimble; are not you? Poor Nimble
must have been so lonely without her; and then you know it must have
seemed so hard to him if Silvy had preferred staying with the Indians to
living with him."
"Those who have been used to a life of ease do not willingly give it up,
my dear lady. Thus you see love for her old companion was stronger even
than love of self. But I think you must have tired yourself with reading
so long to me."
"Indeed, nurse, I must read a little more, for I want you to hear how
Silvy and Nimble amused themselves in the hemlock-tree."
Then Lady Mary continued reading as follows:--
Silvy was greatly pleased with her new home, which was as soft and as warm
as clean dry moss, hay, and fibres of roots could make it. The squirrels
built a sort of pent or outer roof of twigs, dry leaves, and roots of
withered grass, which was pitched so high that it threw off the rain and
kept the inner house very dry. They worked at this very diligently, and
also laid up a store of nuts and berries. They knew that they must not
only provide plenty of food for the winter, but also for the spring
months, when they could get little to eat beside the buds and bark of some
sort of trees, and the chance seeds that might still remain in the
pine-cones.
Thus the autumn months passed away very quickly and cheerfully with the
squirrels while preparing for the coming winter. Half the cold season was
spent, too, in sleep; but on mild, sunny days the little squirrels, roused
by the bright light of the sunbeams on the white and glittering snow,
would shake themselves, rub their black eyes, and after licking themselves
clean from dust, would whisk out of their house, and indulge in merry
gambols up and down the trunks of the trees, skipping from bough to bough,
and frolicking over the hard, crisp snow, which scarcely showed on its
surface the delicate print of their tiny feet and the sweep of their fine
light feathery tails. Sometimes they met with some little shrewmice
running on the snow. These very tiny things are so small, they hardly look
bigger than a large black beetle. They lived on the seeds of the tall
weeds, which they might be seen climbing and clinging to, yet were hardly
heavy enough to weigh down the heads of the dry stalks. It is pretty to
see the footprints of these small shrewmice on the surface of the fresh
fallen snow in the deep forest glades. They are not dormant during the
winter, like many of the mouse tribe, for they are up and abroad at all
seasons; for however stormy and severe the weather may be, they do not
seem to heed its inclemency. Surely, children, there is One who cares for
the small tender things of earth, and shelters them from the rude blasts.
Nimble-foot and Silver-nose often saw their cousins, the black squirrels,
playing in the sunshine, chasing each other merrily up and down the trees
or over the brush-heaps; their jetty coats and long feathery tails forming
a striking contrast with the whiteness of the snow. Sometimes they saw a
few red squirrels too, but there was generally war between them and the
black ones.
In these lonely forests everything seems still and silent during the long
wintry season, as if death had spread a white pall over the earth and
hushed every living thing into silence. Few sounds are heard through the
winter days to break the deathlike silence that reigns around, excepting
the sudden rending and cracking of the trees in the frosty air, the fall
of a decayed branch, the tapping of a solitary woodpecker--two or three
small species of which still remain after all the summer-birds are
flown--and the gentle, weak chirp of the little tree-creeper, as it runs
up and down the hemlocks and pines, searching the crevices of the bark for
insects. Yet in all this seeming death lies hidden the life of myriads of
insects, the huge beast of the forest asleep in his lair, with many of the
smaller quadrupeds and forest-birds, that, hushed in lonely places, shall
awake to life and activity as soon as the sun-beams once more dissolve the
snow, unbind the frozen streams, and loosen the bands which held them in
repose.
At last the spring, the glad, joyous spring, returned. The leaf-buds,
wrapped within their gummy and downy cases, began to unfold; the dark
green pines, spruce, and balsams began to shoot out fresh spiny leaves,
like tassels, from the ends of every bough, giving out the most refreshing
fragrance; the crimson buds of the young hazels and the scarlet blossoms
of the soft maple enlivened the edges of the streams; the bright coral
bark of the dogwood seemed as if freshly varnished, so brightly it glowed
in the morning sunshine; the scream of the blue jay, the song of the robin
and woodthrush, the merry note of the chiccadee and plaintive cry of the
pheobe, with loud hammering strokes of the great red-headed woodpecker,
mingled with the rush of the unbound forest streams, gurgling and
murmuring as their water flowed over their stones, and the sighing of the
breeze playing in the tree tops, made pleasant and ceaseless music. And
then, as time passed on, the trees unfolded all their bright green
leaves--the buds and forest flowers opened; and many a bright bell our
little squirrels looked down upon, from their leafy home, that the eye
of man had never seen.
It was pleasant for our little squirrels, just after sunset, in the still
summer evenings, when the small silver stars came stealing out one by one
in the blue sky, to play among the cool dewy leaves of the grand old oaks
and maples; to watch the fitful flash of the fireflies, as they glanced
here and there, flitting through the deep gloom of the forest boughs, now
lost to sight, as they closed their wings, now flashing out like tiny
tapers, borne aloft by unseen hands in the darkness. Where that little
creek runs singing over its mossy bed, and the cedar-boughs bend down so
thick and close that only a gleam of the bright water can be seen, even in
the sunlight, there the fireflies crowd, and the damp foliage is all alive
with their dazzling light.
In this sweet, still hour, just at the dewfall, the rush of whirring wings
may be heard from the islands, or in the forest, bordering on the water's
edge; and out of hollow logs and hoary trunks of trees come forth the
speckled night-hawks, cutting the air with their thin, sharp, wide wings
and open beak, ready to intrap the unwary moth or musquito that float so
joyously upon the evening air. One after another, sweeping in wider
circles, come forth these birds of prey, till the whole air seems alive
with them; darting hither and thither, and uttering wild, shrill screams,
as they rise higher and higher in the upper air, till some are almost lost
to sight. Sometimes one of them will descend with a sudden swoop to the
lower regions of the air, just above the highest treetops, with a hollow,
booming sound, as if some one were blowing in an empty vessel.
At this hour, too, the bats would quit their homes in hollow trees and old
rocky banks, and flit noiselessly abroad over the surface of the quiet,
star-lit lake: and now also would begin the shrill, trilling note of the
green-frog, and the deep, hoarse bass of the bull-frog, which ceases only
at intervals, through the long, warm summer night. You might fancy a droll
sort of dialogue was being carried on among them. At first a great fellow,
the patriarch of the swamp, will put up his head, which looks very much
like a small pair of bellows, with yellow leather sides, and say, in a
harsh, guttural tone, "Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed." After a moment's
pause, two or three will rise and reply, "No, I won't; no, I won't; no, I
won't." Then the old fellow, with a growl, replies, "Get out, get out, get
out." And forthwith, with a rush, and a splash, and a dash, they raise a
chorus of whirring, grating, growling, grunting, whistling sounds, which
make you stop up your ears. When all this hubbub has lasted some minutes,
there is a pop and a splash, and down go all the heads under the weeds and
mud; and after another pause, up comes the aged father of the frogs, and
begins again with the old story, "Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed," and so
on. During the heat of the day the bull-frogs are silent; but as the day
declines and the air becomes cooler, they recommence their noisy chorus.
I suppose these sounds, though not very pleasant to the ears of men, may
not be so disagreeable to those of wild animals. I daresay neither Nimble
nor Silvy were in the least annoyed by the hoarse note of the bull-frog,
but gambolled as merrily among the boughs and fresh dewy leaves as if they
were listening to sweet music or the songs of the birds.
The summer passed away very happily; but towards the close of the warm
season the squirrels, Nimble and Silvy, resolved to make a journey to the
rocky island on Stony Lake, to see the old squirrels, their father and
mother. So they started at sunrise one fine pleasant day, and travelled
along; till one cool evening, just as the moon was beginning to rise above
the pine-trees, they arrived at the little rocky islet where they first
saw the light. But when they eagerly ran up the trunk of the old oak tree,
expecting to have seen their old father and mother, they were surprised
and terrified by seeing a wood-owl in the nest.
As soon as she espied our little squirrels she shook her feathers and set
up her ears--for she was a long-eared owl--and said,--
"What do you want here?--ho, ho, ho, ho!"
"Indeed, Mrs. Owl," said Nimble, "we come hither to see our parents, whom
we left here a year ago. Can you tell us where we shall find them?"
The owl peered out of her ruff of silken feathers, and, after wiping her
sharp bill on her breast, said,--
"Your cousin, the black squirrel, beat your father and mother out of their
nest a long time ago, and took possession of the tree and all that was in
it; and they brought up a large family of little ones, all of which I
pounced upon one after another, and ate. Indeed, the oaks here belong to
my family; so, finding these impudent intruders would not quit the
premises, I made short work of the matter, and took the law into my own
hands."
"Did you kill them?" asked Silvy, in a trembling voice.
"Of course I did; and very nice, tender meat they were," replied the
horrid old owl, beginning to scramble out of the nest, and eyeing the
squirrels at the same time with a wicked look.
"But you did not eat our parents too?" asked the trembling squirrels.
"Yes, I did. They were very tough, to be sure; but I am not very
particular."
The gray squirrels, though full of grief and vain regret, were obliged to
take care of themselves. There was, indeed, no time to be lost; so
made a hasty retreat. They crept under the roots of an old tree, where
they lay till the morning. They were not much concerned for the death of
the treacherous black squirrel who had told so many stories, got
possession of their old nest, and caused the death of their parents; but
they said, "We will go home again to our dear old hemlock-tree, and never
leave it more." So these dear little squirrels returned to their forest
home, and may be living there yet.
* * * * *
"Nurse," said Lady Mary, "how do you like the story?"
Mrs. Frazer said it was a very pretty one.
"Perhaps my dear little pet is one of Nimble or Silvy's children. You
know, nurse, they might have gone on their travels too, when they were old
enough, and then your brother may have chopped down the tree, and found
them in the forest."
"But your squirrel, Lady Mary, is a flying squirrel, and these were only
common gray ones, which belong to a different species. Besides, my dear,
this history is but a fable."
"I suppose, nurse," said the child, looking up in her nurse's face,
"squirrels do not really talk."
"No, my dear; they have not the use of speech as we have. But in all ages
people have written little tales called fables, in which they make birds
and beasts speak as if they were men and women, it being an easy method of
conveying instruction."
"My book is only a fable, then, nurse? I wish it had been true: but it is
very pretty."