Part 6 (1/2)

”You wouldn't be my little wife, would you?” he asked, coming nearer to her.

”Why--I--might!” she answered, with a saucy flirt of her tail, and she scampered away as fast as she could. Do you think Mr. Red Squirrel stopped then to eat his fat kernel of yellow corn? Or do you think he waited to see whether the Blue Jays were around? No, indeed! He followed as fast as his legs could carry him from tree to tree, from branch to branch, and it was not until he had reached the top of a tall beech that he overtook his little sweetheart. They were still there when the Gray Squirrel happened along in the afternoon.

”Ah!” said he, squinting at Mr. Red Squirrel, for his eyes were poor.

”You are getting acquainted, are you? Pleasant society here. The Squirrel set is very select. You must meet some of our young people.

Suppose you will begin housekeeping one of these days?”

”I have done so already, sir,” answered Mr. Red Squirrel, although his wife was nudging him with one paw and motioning him to keep quiet. ”Mrs.

Red Squirrel and I will build our round home in the top fork of this tree. We shall be pleased to have you call when we are settled.”

”Is that so?” exclaimed the Gray Squirrel. ”I did not know that you were married. I thought you came alone to the forest.”

”This is my wife, sir,” said Mr. Red Squirrel, and the Gray Squirrel made his very best bow and looked at her as sharply as his poor eyes would let him.

”I think I must have seen you somewhere,” he said; ”your face is very familiar.” And he scratched his poor old puzzled head with one claw.

”Why, Cousin Gray Squirrel, don't you know Bushy-tail?” she cried. ”You lived the next tree to mine all winter.”

”To be sure!” he exclaimed. ”But isn't your marriage rather sudden?”

”No,” she said, blus.h.i.+ng under her fur. ”We have always liked each other, although we never spoke until this morning. I used to scamper along the rail fence to see Mr. Red Squirrel in his cage.”

”Did you truly come for that?” asked her husband, after their caller had gone.

”I truly did,” she answered, ”but I never expected anybody to know it.

You poor fellow! I felt so sorry for you. I would have given every nut I had to set you free.”

They were a very happy couple, and the next fall the Gray Squirrel watched them and their children gathering nuts for their winter stores.

Mr. Red Squirrel, as the head of the family, planned the work, yet each did his share. The nuts were not yet ripe, and they gnawed off the stems, then came to the ground, filled their cheek-pockets with the fallen nuts, and scampered off to hide them in many places. They were stored in tree-hollows, under the rustling leaves which strewed the ground, in the cracks of old logs, beneath brush-heaps, and in holes in the ground.

”Don't stop to think how many you need,” said the little mother to her children. ”Get every nut you can. It may be a very long winter.”

”And if you don't eat them all,” said their hard-working father with a twinkle in his eyes, ”you may want to drop a few down to some poor fellow who has none. That was your mother's way.”

”When was it her way? What makes you smile when you say it? Mother, what does he mean?” cried the young Red Squirrels all in a breath.

”I gave some nuts to a hungry Squirrel once,” she said, ”and he was so grateful that he drove the Blue Jays away when they tried to rob me.”

But she looked so happy as she spoke that the children knew there was more to the story. They dared not tease her to tell, so they whispered among themselves and wondered what their father meant.

As they gathered nuts near the Gray Squirrel, he motioned them to come close. ”S-s.h.!.+” said he. ”Don't tell it from me, but I think the poor hungry fellow was your father, and it was a lucky thing for you that she had enough to give away.”

”Do you suppose that was it?” the young Red Squirrels whispered to each other. ”Do you really suppose so?”

[Ill.u.s.tration]