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 gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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 woodp.e.c.k.e.r--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 ta.s.sels, 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 woodp.e.c.k.e.r, 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 pa.s.sed 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 h.o.a.ry 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, hoa.r.s.e ba.s.s 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sed 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."

CHAPTER IV.

SQUIRRELS--THE CHITMUNKS--DOCILITY OF A PET ONE--ROGUERY OF A YANKEE PEDLAR--RETURN OF THE MUSICAL CHITMUNK TO HIS MASTER'S BOSOM--SAGACITY OF A BLACK SQUIRREL.

"Mrs. Frazer, are you very busy just now?" asked Lady Mary, coming up to the table where her nurse was ironing some lace.

"No, my dear, not very busy, only preparing these lace edgings for your frocks. Do you want me to do anything for you?"

"I only want to tell you that my governess has promised to paint my dear squirrel's picture, as soon as it is tame and will let me hold it in my lap, without flying away. I saw a picture of a flying squirrel to-day, but it was very ugly--not at all like mine; it was long and flat, and its legs looked like sticks, and it was stretched out, just like one of those muskrat skins that you pointed out to me in a fur store. Mamma said it was drawn so, to show it while it was in the act of flying; but it is not pretty--it does not show its beautiful tail, nor its bright eyes, nor soft silky fur. I heard a lady tell mamma about a nest full of dear, tiny little flying squirrels, that her brother once found in a tree in the forest; he tamed them, and they lived very happily together, and would feed from his hand. They slept in the cold weather like dormice; in the daytime they lay very still, but would come out, and gambol and frisk about at night. But somebody left the cage open, and they all ran away except one; and that he found in his bed, where it had run for shelter, with its little nose under his pillow. He caught the little fellow, and it lived with him till the spring, when it grew restless, and one day got away, and went off to the woods."

"These little creatures are impatient of confinement, and will gnaw through the woodwork of the cage to get free, especially in the spring of the year. Doubtless, my dear, they pine for the liberty which they used to enjoy before they were captured by man."

"Nurse, I will not let my little pet be unhappy. As soon as the warm days come again, and my governess has taken his picture, I will let him go free. Are there many squirrels in this part of Canada?"

"Not so many as in Upper Canada, Lady Mary. They abound more in some years than in others. I have seen the beech and oak woods swarming with black squirrels. My brothers have brought in two or three dozen in one day. The Indians used to tell us that want of food, or very severe weather setting in in the north, drive these little animals from their haunts. The Indians, who observe these things more than we do, can generally tell what sort of winter it will be, from the number of wild animals in the fall."

"What do you mean by the fall, nurse?"

"The autumn in Canada, my lady, is called so from the fall of the leaves.

I remember one year was remarkable for the great number of black, gray, and flying squirrels; the little striped chitmunk was also plentiful, and so were weasels and foxes. They came into the barns and granaries, and into the houses, and destroyed great quant.i.ties of grain; besides gnawing clothes that were laid out to dry; this they did to line their nests with.

Next year there were very few to be seen."