my house is in a little grove of oak trees.

every winter i feed several gray squirrels with nuts.

every day about noon a big father squirrel comes and scratches on my kitchen window.

there he sits on the sill, watching with bright eyes until i open the window and throw out some nuts.

the more timid squirrels are seated on the ground looking up at the window. they catch the nuts and scamper away with them up to the tops of the trees. but not furry. he takes nuts from my hands, and holding them in his little finger-claws, gnaws away the shell faster[81] than i can count ten. he acts quite like a little pig sometimes, for he asks for more than he needs.

what do you think he does with them?

he jumps down with one in his mouth and starts to dig. as soon as the hole is deep enough to suit him he buries the nut, packing the earth carefully over it to make it look as though the ground had not been disturbed.

then back he comes for another nut.

if all the nuts he plants were acorns and he should forget to come and find half of them when he is hungry—how big my oak forest would be!

squirrel family

questions

i.

have you ever fed a squirrel?

where have you seen the largest number together?

why were they not afraid?

[82]

how do mother squirrels carry their babies from one place to another?

how do mother cats carry their babies?

if mothers did not love their babies so much, what would happen to all animals and people?

do we have to thank squirrels for some of our trees? why?

ii.

did you ever wish your doll or rocking horse were alive?

could anyone make them live?

isn’t being alive the most wonderful thing you can think of?

doesn’t it make you glad to think of the little wild things living in the out-of-doors?

name some of the animals living in the woods.

would the country be as pleasant without them?

why should you dislike to hurt any of them?

iii.

do you know that if people do not stop hunting wild ducks, mountain sheep, deer, and other animals they may all be killed?

did you ever see a reindeer?

did you notice its beautiful eyes?

would it be fun to fight a baby?

are not many animals as helpless as babies when they are hunted?

don’t you think it is cowardly to shoot little helpless animals “for fun”?