Page:TheSquirrel.djvu/1



HE Squirrel lived with his lifelong mate near the farm-house. He considered himself very rich, because he owned an English walnut tree. Neither he nor his mate had the least doubt that it belonged to them and not to the Farmer. There were not many like it in the State or the whole country. It was a beautiful tree, with a mighty spread of branches full of gnarled strength. Nearly every year there was a goodly promise of nuts, which never came to anything, so far as the people in the farm-house were concerned. Every summer they looked hopefully at the laden branches, and said to each other, "This year we shall have nuts," but there were never any. They could not understand it. But they were old people; had there been boys in the family it might have been different. Probably they would have solved the mystery. It was simple enough. The Squirrel and his mate considered the nuts as theirs, and appropriated them. They loved nuts; they were their natural sustenance; and through having an unquestioning, though unwitting, belief in Providence, they considered that nuts which grew within their reach were placed there for them as a matter of course. There were the Squirrels, and there were the nuts. No nuts, no Squirrels! The conclusion was obvious to such simple intelligences.

As soon as the nuts were ripe the Squirrel and his mate were busy all day, gathering the nuts, and then carrying them in their swollen cheek pouches to their little storehouse under the wood-pile. Back and forth they sped with such smooth swiftness that it was no more perceptible than the passing of a beam of light.

The Squirrels were very near the color tones of the tree, which, moreover, held its leaves late; only a boy would have been likely to spy them out.

"It is a strange thing about those nuts," the Farmer's Wife often said to her husband, peering up at the tree with her dim old eyes, and he assented. The old couple were given to sitting out on their porch after supper as long as the evenings were warm enough, and it was a late autumn that year. There were occasional frosts, but summerlike days between.

The Farmer and his Wife were a fond old couple. They had never had any children, and the sympathy of their own natures had drawn them more closely together through the long years. They looked and thought alike. If anything, the Wife had the stronger nature of the two, but both of them were gentle, yet with a certain wariness and shrewdness, not unlike that of the Squirrels. They were very careful of their money, and saved every penny, and had made considerable provision for their old age. They looked forward to nothing except perfect peace and comfort on this earth for the rest of their lives, and as for what would come after—they had a religious hope.

They had always looked at their English walnut tree and speculated as to what could have become of the nuts, but the speculation did not disturb them at all. They took things which had happened for some time easily, being gently conservative to the bone. "Seems as if them nuts must drop off that tree and be picked up," said the Farmer, "but there ain't no boys."

"No, there ain't no boys," said his Wife.

Sometimes the Farmer used to walk about under the tree and look on the ground for fallen nuts, and his Wife did likewise, but they never found any. They were not aware of four of the keenest eyes of watchfulness and wariness in the whole world intent upon them from some corner of hiding. Now and then they saw one of the Squirrels slipping along the stone wall, and looked at him with