IT
WAS not so many years ago that I became acquainted with Frisky. It was
while I was teaching in the college at Madison, Tennessee.
For
several days I had noticed a squirrel running in and out of a hole in an
old tree, but thought little of it. Not only was the weather cold, but
there was rain almost every day not common, gentle rains, but cold, dreary
downpours that drenched everything. Any sensible squirrel might be
expected to live much in a hollow tree in such weather, especially if the
hole opened where the rain could not flow in, as did the hole in this
tree.
As
I passed the tree, going to and from my meals, I often tossed pieces of
whole-wheat bread to this squirrel, which she always took with evident
pleasure, and held in her dainty hands while she ate them. Should I toss
her a piece of white bread, she would nibble off the crust, then toss the
remainder away as though it were not good enough for a squirrel to eat.
In
this way we became good friends - so good, in fact, that when I came near,
she kept about her business without paying the least attention to me,
unless she was hungry, when she would stop to beg. This will perhaps
explain my being able to see the following incident.
One
afternoon the weather had cleared, and the sun was shining brightly. The
elm buds were swelling, and the first red maple trees were already showing
green. My squirrel had gone to the top of a near-by elm tree for a supper
of elm buds. I noticed her swinging on the small twigs and pulling buds to
her with her paws, seemingly having a great feast.
A
number of men were doing some sort of work on the campus and happened to
be near the tree where my squirrel lived. Suddenly one of them cried out,
Look there! What is that running across the lawn?"
Everyone
looked in the direction he pointed, and I saw one of the queerest little
animals I have ever seen scampering across the lawn as fast as it could
go. It was about the size of a third-grown rat, but its legs were far too
long for a young rat's. It had a tail as long as that of a rat, but it
carried it high in the air, something no rat would do. Besides its tail
had too much hair on it for a rat's tail. An argument started as to what
it could be, some saying one thing and another something else, but no one
could be sure. The creature seemed so awkward on its long, gangling legs,
and it made out so badly at running that at our distance it did not look
like anything we knew. For some reason I glanced back at my friend in the
tree eating elm buds.
Suddenly
she let loose of the twigs on which she was swinging and dropped to a limb
below, caught it, and ran down the tree to the ground as fast as she FR
could go. Then she raced away across the lawn like a flash. I had no idea
a squirrel could run so fast.
At
first, I could not think why she should be running so hard; but soon I saw
that she was chasing the creature we had been watching. She quickly
caught up with it and pounced on it as a cat would pounce on a mouse.
There was a struggle, the little fellow doing his best to get away; but at
last the squirrel gathered him up in her mouth, ran up a tree, and
started toward her nest, jumping from branch to branch and from tree to
tree. The creature hung limp in her mouth, and I supposed she had killed
it, whatever it was.
I
watched eagerly to see if I could learn what she had caught; for though I
had heard that squirrels catch young birds at times, and I had once seen
one catch a baby chicken, I had never heard of their catching a
four-footed animal of any kind. Besides, when I had seen a squirrel catch
a baby chicken, it never carried it to its hole, but merely took it up
into a tree and ate it there.
Finally
my squirrel reached her home tree and ran down to the hole. I was at the
foot of the tree, watching to see what she had in her mouth. And what do
you suppose it was? It was a baby squirrel, so small that its tail was not
even broad and bushy, though it was fully covered with hair. It was one of
her babies. Frisky was the name I gave him when I came to know him better.
He was so venturesome that he had stolen from the nest hole - just as a
wee child sometimes gets out of the yard when mother is not looking - and
had run away. He was far too small to take care of himself, and it was not
at all safe for him to be out of the nest hole; but he was determined to
go where he pleased, in spite of his mother.
When
she reached the hole, she let her baby loose, so he could go inside; but
he promptly started around the tree and tried to get away again. She soon
caught him, and in the struggle, nearly dropped him to the ground. , Now
she dragged him to the mouth of the hole, and actually pushed his head
into it. But Frisky, protesting at the top of his voice, placed a little
paw on each side of the hole, and refused to go in, but she was determined.
The
mother pushed and scolded, and moved from one side of the hole to the
other; still he would not go inside. Finally she seemed to lose patience,
and bit him till he squealed with pain. Then she crowded into the hole
herself, and dragged him after her. For several minutes, I could hear the
little fellow crying and protesting in a way that made it evident -he was
being punished for his naughtiness. Afterwards everything became quiet,
and soon the mother squirrel came out of the hole and ran to the elm tree,
and again began eating her supper of elm buds.
Some
young animals are like some children they seem determined to do as they
please no matter what their parents say, or how much they may worry about
their wayward children. But the great difference between these disobedient
animals and disobedient children is that the animals usually pay for their
disobedience with their lives. They venture into danger and are killed and
eaten by some enemy.
For
over a week Frisky stayed in the nest with his brothers and sisters, and
made no trouble. He was growing fast, however; and day by day he became
surer that he could take care of himself, and that there was really no
reason why so big a squirrel as he should stay in a dark hole all the
time.
As
I passed his tree, I soon began to notice his bright eyes watching me out
of the hole. One day, about a week after his first adventure, when I threw
some bread to his mother, he scampered out of the hole and came down after
a piece on his own account. His mother was sitting on her haunches near
the tree with a piece of bread in her paws, and was so busy eating that
she did not see what he was about. Frisky was even more awkward by this
time, and seemed to be all legs and tail. Because of lack of practice, he
wobbled a good bit as he came down the side of the tree, and once or twice
his hold slipped and he came near tumbling on his head. But he was a
plucky fellow, and as soon as he recovered his hold he would come on down
as if nothing had happened.
When
he reached the ground, I threw him a piece of bread, which he grabbed
eagerly, and began nibbling as fast as he could. But his mother noticed me
throw the bread, and though she had a piece already, she turned to see
where it had gone. Frisky had scarcely begun nibbling his prize before
she saw him, and with a cry of anger or fear-I could not tell which -
dropped her bread and ran for him.
Evidently
Frisky was not surprised at this, for he jumped as quickly as she, and
scampered behind the tree. Here they chased back , and forth for almost
a minute before his mother caught him. Then she took him by the back of
the neck, and half dragged, half pushed him up the tree to the hole, he
squealing and protesting all the time. Every chance he got, he would dig
his tiny claws into the bark and hang on for dear life, his mother
sometimes having to climb below him to pull, him loose. It took fully ten
minutes for the mother to get him up the ten feet to the hole; and when
she did, it took almost as much longer to get him inside. And evidently
this did' not do much good; for in a few hours I saw him out again,
learning to run about on the tree.
Now
if Frisky's home had been in the woods, he would most surely have paid for
his disobedience with his life. Some animal or bird of prey would surely
have caught him before he learned how to take care of himself.
Fortunately, he was born in a place where no one was allowed to kill
squirrels, and where cats and dogs were not welcomed. So for two or three
days he did pretty much as he pleased, his mother deciding there was
nothing to be gained by fussing about something she could not prevent.
But
one day a stray dog came onto the place when Frisky was on the ground some
distance from a tree. Frisky had never had anything try to catch him, and
so paid no attention to the dog even when it came near. But his mother saw
the dog, and from her perch in a tree began screaming that there was
danger near, and for him to run to a tree as fast as he could go.
Frisky
sat; up and looked around, but stayed where he was. It was very evident he
thought he knew more than his mother regarding his safety. In vain she
screamed and scolded. She even came down to the foot of the tree and ran
out a few feet onto the lawn and then up the tree. Frisky moved a little
nearer the tree, but again began hunting for something in the grass, while
the dreadful dog was coming nearer and nearer every moment. The poor
mother became almost frantic; but she knew that to catch her son by the
back of the neck and attempt to drag him to safety, as she had done when
he was smaller, only meant the death of both of them.
Finally
the dog saw Frisky and dashed for him. At the precise moment, Frisky
looked up and saw the dog coming.
It
was pitiful to see the poor little fellow then. Every hair on his body
showed terror; and for a moment he could not move. Then he dashed for a
tree, with the dog hardly ten feet behind. The bark of the dog and his
open mouth must have added strength to Frisky's baby legs and put sense
into his naughty head; for just as the dog was about to grab him, he
suddenly whirled and started the other way. The dog passed him before he
could stop, and Frisky had a moment's advantage to run again toward his
tree.
In
a moment the dog had turned, and was again in full pursuit. It was still
ten feet to the tree, and Frisky could not possibly make it in time. Just
then the faithful mother ran out on, the end of a branch and jumped out of
her tree almost into the dog's mouth. The dog was taken by surprise and
checked his speed to see what this creature was that had dared to jump on
him out of the tree. Before he could recover his wits enough to grab the
mother squirrel or even decide what to do, she was well on her way to
another tree and safety. By the time he again got under way, Frisky had
reached his tree. The dog reached it at almost the same time, and
succeeded in nipping off the tip of Frisky's tail. Frisky got away, but it
was a long time before he again had a full, bushy tail, and the scar
remains even to this day, and gives his tail a peculiar appearance -a
sure way to tell him from other squirrels.
Frisky,
in many ways, was above normal. He was a headstrong, self-willed
adventurer; but he could learn his lesson and profit by it, - something
many human children do not seem able to do. Never again did I see Frisky
so sure of himself ; and ever after, he heeded his mother's danger call.
More than that, it was a long time before I again saw him so far away from
a tree as he was the day he came so near being caught by a dog.
Soon
the other youngsters, Frisky's brothers and sisters, were out of the nest
hole and in the trees; but none of them were so careful as Frisky now was.
By fall, all were grown, and the, time came for the family to scatter.
Late in October, all the squirrels on the place disappeared, going no one
knew where. For a day or two none were seen; then gradually, one by one,
they drifted back -- that is some of them did.
Many
of them never came back at all. I have watched this happen for years
among the almost pet squirrels that live on the campus, and about the same
time every year this occurs, and always some of them, even the tamest,
never come back, and always one or two strangers appear on the campus.
They can be told from the others by the fact that they are so wild for a
few weeks after they come.
This
seems to be God's way of seeing that the squirrels do not become too
plentiful in one place and that they do not become too closely related.
Frisky had been gone for more than a week when finally he appeared one
morning in a tree not far from my door, and almost a quarter of a mile
from where he was born. He was not the tame little fellow he was when he
left his home. Had it not been for his injured tail I might have mistaken
him for a stranger; who had never been on the campus before. In fact, he
acted as though he were afraid of everyone who came in sight.
There
is a heavy electric light wire that runs past the tree where Frisky was
born, goes on by the chapel, to the sanitarium, and from there a branch
comes on up to and beyond the house where I lived. One day when Frisky was
scarcely more than half grown he had climbed to this wire and gone
exploring. I chanced to see him slowly making his way over the wire from
post to post, until he had finally reached my house. Here he jumped to a
tall elm tree and played about for a few hours. Before night he went back
home and I thought no more about it. He must have liked the place and
remembered it when the time came to find a home of his own, or of course
he may have just happened my way when the time came and decided to stay.
At any rate he came, and he stayed.
He
would climb back and forth over the wire screen and look longingly in, but
always ended by scampering up a tree and eating a few buds. But buds did
not satisfy him, and we were merely amused at his ingenuity in getting
them. But soon he was eating nothing else, though walnuts were now ripe,
but none grew near, and there were only a few acorns on the oaks near
where Frisky had decided to live. One day I went a mile or more from home,
brought back three sacks of walnuts, and poured them out on the ground
near the house, expecting to hull and dry them soon. These walnuts settled
the matter of Frisky's being afraid of us. From morning till night, he was
either at this walnut pile getting a nut, or sitting on a tree or a
fencepost near by eating one. Of course, we often went to this pile of
walnuts, and he soon learned to pay no other attention to us than to scold
till we went away.
After
a while, I hulled the walnuts that were left, and took them into the
house. Now Frisky had to hunt for a living, and he began to know what it
was to go with an empty stomach He hunted far and wide, but usually had to
end up by eating a meal of buds gathered from either an elm or a hackberry
tree; for even in Tennessee food becomes scarce at times in the winter.
When
my walnuts were well dried, I put them in a sack and set them on the back
porch -a sort of room enclosed on three sides by the other rooms of the
house, and on the outside by wire screen. Frisky had long since learned
that crumbs and fruit pits were sometimes thrown out of doors near this
screened porch, and he was a frequent visitor there, even climbing up on
the wire and looking in to see if he could discover anything good to eat.
The very day I put the walnuts on the back porch, he found them.
He
was hungry, and the nuts surely would taste good; but how was he to get
them? For two or three hours he ran from the porch to the trees and back
again. Finally he began to tear at the wire screen where it was fastened
to a pillar, and by the time we came home in the evening he had made a
hole large enough to go in and out.
For
two or three days he took our nuts; and it became evident that, if we were
to have any ourselves, something must be done about it. So Mrs. Bralliar
set a mousetrap on top of the bag that held the nuts. In a few moments
here came Frisky, and popped through the hole, and jumped on the sack.
Snap went the trap and caught the end of his bushy tail.
For
a moment, Frisky was so scared he could not think what to do. He dashed
about on the porch, first one way and then another, jumped first on the
screen and then on the wall, the mousetrap striking him at every jump and
adding to his fright. Mrs. Bralliar had been expecting this to happen,
and saw him get in the trap, and watched him till she began to fear he
would knock something down and break it; then she went out on the porch to
open the door.
But
at last the frightened squirrel remembered the hole in the wire screen,
and dashed through it. The trap caught on the wire and pulled loose from
his tail, without doing any damage other than pulling out a few hairs.
Frisky scampered up the nearest tree as fast as he could go, and ran
through the treetops to his hole, where he remained the rest of the day
and all night.
For
two or three days after Frisky got his tail in the mousetrap, he did not
come through the hole and take walnuts from the back porch, and I thought
we had won.
But
there came a snow, and food was even harder to get, and the walnuts were
still in the sack on the back porch. Frisky, when it seemed he just must
have a nut, climbed up on the wire screen and peeped through. The nuts
were there, and they looked so good! But there was that hateful trap
again, right on top of the sack, waiting to catch him. He ran away, lest
he be tempted; but soon he was back. Again he peeped, longer and more
longingly than before; but again he ran away hastily. He was gone so long
we began to think he had given up and would make no more attempts to get
the nuts.
Then
suddenly he appeared again, and without hesitation climbed through the
hole in the screen. Clearly he had worked out a plan. Holding his tail
high over his back, he crept along on the inside of the screen for a few
feet, then jumped down to the floor. Fearlessly he ran to the sack, and
cut a hole in the side, through which he helped himself to a nut.
Carefully he carried it up the side of the wire screen and across to the
hole; and soon he was sitting in a tree, cracking his prize. Before night,
he had carried away more than a score of nuts, and was living in plenty
again.
Not
to be outwitted by a squirrel, Mrs. Bralliar made the hole in the side of
the sack a little bigger, and the next morning, set the mousetrap inside
this hole. Before long, Frisky came in, and boldly started to poke his
head and front feet into the hole after a nut. Snap went the trap, this
time catching him by one of his front feet. Of course he was scared, and
got out of the house as fast as he could go, carrying the trap with him.
He climbed to the top of his favorite tree, then sat down on a limb and
began trying to get the trap off his foot. Evidently it had struck the
side of the sack when it went off, and so had not hurt his foot very much.
He
worked and twisted, biting at the trap with his teeth and pulling at it
with his feet. Presently he succeeded in pulling it off, and it dropped
over the fence into the bushes. Surely, we thought, he has learned his
lesson this time, and we shall have no more trouble over our walnuts. But
we were too confident. Frisky was not hurt, and now apparently he believed
that the horrid trap was disposed of and could do no more harm. Within an
hour he was back at the sack of walnuts; and he fed on it all day. But he
cut a new hole on the a other side of the, sack through which to get the
nuts.
We
had not wanted really to hurt the squirrel, merely to keep him out of the
walnuts. We had set only a common, small, spring mousetrap, which we knew
would not hurt him very badly. So we set the trap in the new hole. But
Frisky had learned a bit too. When he came back he carefully examined the
hole, and finding the trap in it, cut a third one. We set the trap in this
and he cut another. So it went till he quit cutting more holes. He merely
examined the old ones till he found one with no trap in it. Then he helped
himself to the nuts.
Mrs.
Bralliar wanted me to move the nuts into a room where the squirrel could
not get them, but it had come to be an interesting game, trying to find
just how wise Frisky really was, and I let the sack; stay where it was,
but we never caught him again.- If I put a trap in every hole, he cut a
new one. If I put it on top of the sack where he jumped when coming
through the hole he ran along the ledge a few feet and jumped to the
floor. When I set it so he could not get through the hole without getting
into the trap, he cut a new hole through the screen.
Finally,
between us all, the walnuts were eaten. But by this time, Frisky had
learned that there were other things in the house that were good to eat,
and that it was easier to get them than to hunt for a living in the woods.
From that day till this, we have never been able, for more than a few days
at a time, to keep the screen wire on the back porch free from a hole
through which Frisky can go. As fast as we mend one hole, he makes
another.
Our
kitchen opened on this porch, and as the porch was large it was a
convenient place to keep certain foods that needed a cool, airy place; but
we soon came to the conclusion that the only way to keep food from Frisky
was to keep it in the kitchen instead of on the porch. The squirrel
learned what we were doing, and before long he was ever watching for
someone to leave the door open between the kitchen and the porch, and he
never failed to avail himself of the opportunity to slip in and carry off
enough food to last for a day or two.
Mrs.
Bralliar felt that this was carrying things too far. It was provoking to
cook something and leave it to cool, only to come back an hour later and
find that Frisky had helped himself to all he could hold. One day she came
into the kitchen from the screened porch and found him there. Had she come
no closer to him out of doors he would have paid not the least attention
to her, but this was different. Either he knew he was in mischief, or he
thought he was trapped within four walls. At any rate he was positively
terrified, and raced about wildly, climbing and jumping over everything in
his frantic efforts to find a way out.
Mrs.
Bralliar thought a good scare might teach him a lesson and so closed the
door and let him run. She had the broom in her hand. When he began to
quiet down a bit she knocked him over with the straw end of the broom,
using this so she would not really hurt him, then opened the door, and
literally swept him out, the most badly scared squirrel I ever saw.
But
the wildlings soon recover from a scare.
Within
five minutes Frisky was up in a tree not fifteen feet from the door,
eating elm buds and scolding everyone in sight. But he had learned a
lesson, though not the one Mrs. Bralliar had hoped to teach.
Since
then, he comes to one of the kitchen windows, climbs up, and looks through
to see what is on the kitchen table and whether anyone is in the kitchen.
If he is satisfied that there is food on the table, and that there is no
one to interfere, he jumps down and runs around the house to the screened
porch, comes through the hole, and slips from there into the kitchen. He
is pretty wise, however, and he has always managed to get in and out
without being caught again.
If
the door into the kitchen is closed, and he finds the doors into the
remainder of the house open - not an uncommon thing in summer -- he will
go through all the other rooms and into the kitchen; but before he starts,
he always makes sure there is no one there with a broom.
As
the summer came with its abundance of food of all kinds for both man and
animals, Frisky seemed to lose interest in the house and its pantry. He
ate mulberries in the tree near the front door, much to the disgust of a
pair of mocking birds who claimed this as their own treasure house. True,
other birds ate mulberries here too, but the mockers usually found them
and drove them away. But they were just a little afraid of Frisky. They
would flutter about and scold him, but he cared nothing for this. But
finally, when he had eaten all he wished and started to run away home,
they would chase him and peck him on the back and pull his tail.
Frisky
resented nothing so much as to have the saucy birds pull at his pretty,
bushy tail, and to make matters worse the birds soon learned how to slip
up and pull his tail even when he was quietly eating mulberries. Scold and
fuss as he might, the birds paid little attention to him. So at last he
found a mulberry tree near the sanitarium and moved down there for the
summer.
Mrs.
Lyda F. Scott was a patient at the sanitarium that constitutes one
department of the school. It was summer time and she spent a great deal of
her time lying on a cot in the shade of a great yellow oak near her room.
At
this time Frisky happened to be living in this tree, and so was playing
about near Mrs. Scott much of the time. She decided to try to tame him. In
order to do this she bought a large bag of peanuts and kept them with her
on her cot. Whenever Frisky came near she would toss him a peanut. The
first time she did this, he scampered up his tree and stayed there for a
long time. Seemingly he had not seen the nut, but Mrs. Scott waited for
him to come again, hoping for better luck next time.
But
Frisky had seen that nut; and try as he might, he could not get over
wanting it. Finally his appetite overcame his fear, and he slowly crept
down the tree, stopping every little way to see that no one was watching
for him. At last he jumped to the ground and made a dash for the nut,
carrying it to the top of the tree as quickly as he could go. But he ate
the nut and enjoyed it, and the next time she tossed one to him he did not
run away so far or stay away so long before he got it. Within two days he
would run directly and get a nut if she tossed it far enough away from her
cot.
Now
began the real battle between fear of man and love of nuts, for gradually
Mrs. Scott tossed the much desired nuts closer and closer to her cot, and
gradually, with much scolding and spasms of fright, Frisky came nearer and
nearer to get them. At last, just one week from the time she began tossing
nuts to Frisky, Mrs. Scott allowed him to get very hungry and then laid a
nut on her cot. This really seemed to be too much for the squirrel; but at
last, with a sudden bound he seized the nut and rushed up his tree in a
dreadful panic. In another week he was regularly taking his nuts from her
hand and sitting on her cot to eat them. Kindness and patience had
conquered, but being an adult squirrel when his training began, he never
reached the place where he would allow anyone to close his hand on him.
But he would take nuts from anyone who was not a perfect stranger.
Now
that Frisky was tame he became more interesting than ever because he
could, and did, teach me without fear or favor, and I found him to have
what seemed to me to be a fine sense of honesty.
One
Sabbath it fell to my lot to stay at the sanitarium and receive guests.
Everyone else was at church, and as it was a warm day in late summer, I
preferred to sit on the porch in front of the reception room.
I
had not been there long when Frisky spied me and came on the run. He
hopped up on the railing around the porch and from there jumped over on my
knee to beg for nuts. I usually had nuts of some kind in my pocket and
gave him one. He jumped over on the railing and ate it in a few, moments,
and came back for more. This he repeated till he had eaten all he
wished, but he still came for more. I gave him another and he promptly ran
out on the lawn and buried it, and immediately came back for another,
which he also buried.
In
fact he kept this up till he had buried all the remaining nuts I had; and
it was in doing this that he taught me his lesson. I soon discovered that
he never buried two nuts closer together than two trees could grow and
thrive if he never came back for the nuts. When my supply of nuts was
gone, I went up to my house and got some more; for I wanted to be sure
there was method in this planting of nuts.
Because
I did not have many of any one kind in store, I brought a mixture and so
learned some more of the wisdom of my little friend.
If
I gave him a black walnut, he would dig a hole two or three inches deep in
which to bury it. If I gave him a hazelnut, he dug his hole only an inch
or so deep. If I gave him a beechnut he barely covered it well, feeling
that was enough for so small a seed. But whatever he planted or buried,
whichever you may choose to call it, he never left any show of fresh dirt.
If there were plenty of leaves or dead grass at hand he kicked these over
his fresh dirt. If they were not there, he managed to scratch the fresh
dirt away and pat it down till one would not see it.
As
I view it, this was his code of honor. The trees produce plenty of nuts,
but they cannot grow and thrive properly unless planted at some distance
from the mother tree. The tree furnishes the squirrel all the food he
requires, and in return for this the squirrel plants what he does not wish
for his immediate needs. True, he will not hesitate to dig them up and eat
them should he run out of food, but should he not need them he sees to it
that they are planted in such a manner that they can grow and produce nuts
for future generations.
As
the summer grew old, Frisky evidently grew lonesome for his old home in
the elm tree by my house, for though he was usually at the sanitarium I
often saw him playing on my roof or in the branches of his elm tree, but
thought nothing of it. Surely he regarded his home in the great yellow
oak, where people were always at hand to offer him nuts, apples, and other
food dear to his heart, as permanent.
It
was watermelon season, and my family are fond of watermelons. We ate a
great many in the yard, allowing the seeds to fall in the grass. I noticed
they were never in sight long but thought nothing of it, or if I should
think of it at all, supposed they had merely slipped in among the grass.
Imagine my surprise when one day Mrs. Bralliar called me to "come
here." I went to see what she wanted, and this is what I found.
Her
sewing machine had been sitting in the front hall all summer unused, but
finally she had needed to use it. Imagine her surprise when on opening one
of the drawers she found it full of melon seeds.
No
one had ever seen Frisky in that part of the house at any time, and no one
had seen him in any part of the house for months, but he had evidently
been all over the house in search of the best place to lay up a store of
food for winter; and because this hall was a place he had never been
before, he evidently thought it was well hidden from everyone and that
this machine drawer had been made especially for him. He had almost a
half-gallon of seeds, well dried and as clean as could be, all safely
stored there.
Soon
after this I moved away from Madison and have known but little of Frisky's
later life. Several times I saw and fed him when I visited the school.
Each time he seemed just a little more shy than the time before, and at
last I could not surely recognize him from the other squirrels that live
there.
But
this I will say for the benefit of any of my readers who may wish to have
a pet squirrel, or in fact, a pet of any other kind. No such friendship
as that of owner and pet will ever be very satisfactory so long as the
pleasure is all on one side. We must give our pet as much pleasure as we
expect him to give us. To do this we will have to become really acquainted
with his likes and dislikes, for what gives us pleasure may be very
distasteful to him. No pet really enjoys close confinement, and very few
of them enjoy being handled in such a way as to restrain their freedom
even for a few minutes. Frisky liked to sit on my lap or on my shoulder,
he even liked to have me stroke him, but he was always terrified if I
closed my hand on him so he could not get away. He might not bite nor
scratch, but he was plainly in agony until he was free again.
We
are so much larger and stronger than our pets that it is easy for us to do
things that will cause them actual pain, and no animal will give his
fullest love and loyalty to one who habitually causes him pain.
WHAT'S
NEW? 
