Jonas contrived to tighten the wires of the lender, by weaving in other
wires so as to secure the little prisoner this time; and when he was
fairly in his temporary cage, the boys were so pleased with his
graceful form and beautiful colors, especially the elegant stripes on
his back, that they begged hard to keep him; and they made many earnest
promises never to forget to feed him. Jonas said, at last,
“On the whole. I believe I will let you keep him, but you must do it in
my way.”
“What is your way?”
“Why, after a day or two, we must carry him back to his raspberry-bush,
and let him go. But you may give him a name, and call him yours, and
you can carry some corn down there now and then, to feed him with,—and
then you will see him, occasionally, playing about there.”
James and Rollo did not exactly like this plan at first, but when they
considered how much better the little squirrel himself would like it,
they adopted it; and Rollo proposed that they should tie a string round
his neck for a collar, so that they might know him again.
“I can get mother to let me have a little pink riband,” said he, “and
that will be beautiful.”
“It would be a good plan,” said Jonas, “to mark him in some way, but he
might gnaw off the riband.”
“O no,” said James, “he could not gnaw any thing on his own neck.”
Rollo thought so too, and they both tried to bite their own collar
ribands, by way of showing Jonas how impossible it was.
“I don’t know exactly what the limits are of a squirrel’s gnawing,”
said Jonas. “Perhaps he might tear it off with his claws.”
“Or he might get another squirrel to gnaw it off for him,” said James.
“Yes,” said Jonas, “and there is another difficulty. He might be
jumping from one tree to another, and catch his collar in some little
branch, and so get hung, without judge or jury.”
“What can we do then?” said Rollo.
“I think,” said Jonas, “that the best plan would be to dye the end of
his tail black. That would not hurt him any; and yet, as he always
holds his tail up, we should see it, and know him.”
The boys both thought this would be excellent, and Jonas said he had
some black dye, which he had made for dyeing some wood. Jonas was a
very ingenious boy, and used to make little boxes, and frames, and
windmills, with his penknife, in the long winter evenings, and he had
made this dye out of vinegar and old nails, to dye some of his wood
with.
“I am not certain,” said Jonas, “that my dye will color hair; I never
tried it, except on wood. Do you think that black would be a pretty
color?”
“No,” said Rollo, “black would not be a very pretty color, but it would
do. Yellow, and red, and green, are pretty colors, but black, and
brown, and white, are not pretty at all.”
“I have not got any yellow, or red, or green,” said Jonas. “I don’t
know but that I have got a little blue.”
“O, blue would be beautiful,” said James.
Then Jonas walked along into the barn, and Rollo and James followed
him. He went up stairs, and walked along to the farthest corner, and
there, up on a beam, were several small bottles all in a row. Jonas
took down one, and shook it, and said that was the blue.
He brought it down to the cage; Rollo went into the house, and brought
out an old bowl, and Jonas prepared to pour out the dye into it. They
then concluded that they would carry the whole apparatus down into the
edge of the woods, and perform the operation there; and then the
squirrel, when he was liberated, would easily find his way back to his
home. Jonas carried down a pair of thick, old gloves, to keep the
squirrel from biting him.
As they walked along, Rollo proposed that Jonas should dip the
squirrel’s ears in as well as his tail; “because,” said he, “we may
sometimes see him when he is half hid in the bushes, so that only his
head is in sight.”
“Besides,” said James, “it will make him look more beautiful if his
ears and tail are both blue.”
Jonas did not object to this, and after a short time, they reached the
edge of the woods. They found a little opening, where the ground was
smooth and the grass green, which seemed exactly the place for them. So
they put down the cage and the bowl of dye, and Jonas began to put on
his glove.
“Now, boys,” said he, “you must be still as moonlight while I do it. If
you speak to me, you will put me out; and besides, you will frighten
little Bunny.”
The boys promised not to speak a single word; and Jonas, after
unfastening the fender from the front of the box, moved it along until
there was an opening large enough for him to get his hand in. Rollo and
James stood by silently, and somewhat anxiously, waiting the result.
When the squirrel saw Jonas’s hand intruding itself into the box, he
retreated to the farther corner, and curled himself up there, with his
tail close down upon his back. Jonas followed him with his hand,
saying, in a soothing tone, “Bunny, Bunny, poor little Bunny.”
He reached him, at length, and put his hand very gently over him, and
slowly and cautiously drew him out.
Rollo and James gave a sort of hysteric laugh, and instantly clapped
their hands to their mouths, to suppress it; but they looked at one
another and at Jonas with great delight.
Jonas gradually brought the squirrel over the bowl, and prepared to dip
his ears into the dye. It was a strange situation for a squirrel to be
in, and he did not like it at all; and just at the instant when his
ears were going into the dye, he twisted his head round, and planted
his little fore teeth directly upon Jonas’s thumb. As might have been
supposed, teeth which were sharp and powerful enough to go through a
walnut shell, would not he likely to be stopped by a leathern glove;
and Jonas, startled by the sudden cut, gave a twitch with his hand,
and, at the same instant, let go of the squirrel. Bunny grasped the
edge of the howl with his paws, and leaped out, bringing the bowl
itself at the same instant over upon him, spattering him all over from
head to tail with the blue dye.
[Illustration]
The boys looked aghast for a minute, but when they saw him racing off
as fast as possible, and running up a neighboring tree, Jonas burst
into a laugh, which the other boys joined, and they continued it loud
and long, till the woods rang again.
“Well, we have spotted him, at any rate,” said Jonas. “We will call him
Leopard.”
The boys then looked at Jonas’s bite, and found that it was not a very
serious one. In fact, Jonas was a little ashamed at having let go for
so small a wound However, it was then too late to regret it and the
boys returned slowly home.
As they were walking home, James said that the squirrel’s back looked
_wet_, where the dye went upon him, but he did not think it looked very
_blue_.
“No,” said Jonas, “it does not generally look blue at first, but it
grows blue afterwards. It will be a bright color enough before you see
him again, I will warrant.”
So they walked along home; the fender was put back in its place in the
garret, the bowl in the house, and the box in the barn. Jonas soon
forgot that he had been bitten, and the squirrel, as soon as his back
was dry, thought no more of the whole affair, but turned his attention
entirely to the business of digging a hole to store his nuts in for the
ensuing winter.