Lady Mary and Her Nurse; Or, A Peep into the Canadian Forest

by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill

PART III.

HOW THE SQUIRRELS GOT TO THE MILL AT THE RAPIDS—AND WHAT HAPPENED TO VELVET-PAW.

Nimble-foot and Velvet-paw were so frightened by the sight of the red squirrel, that they ran down the tree without once looking back to see what had become of poor Silver-nose; indeed the cowards, instead of waiting for their poor sister, fled through the forest as if an army of red squirrels were behind them. At last they reached the banks of the lake, and, jumping into the water, swam down the current till they came to a place called the "Narrow," where the wide lake poured its waters through a deep rocky channel, not more than a hundred yards wide; here the waters became so rough and rapid, that our little swimmers thought it wisest to go on shore. They scrambled up the steep rocky bank, and found themselves on a wide open space, quite free from trees, which they knew must be one of the great clearings the traveller squirrel had spoken of. There was a very high building on the water's edge, that they thought must be the mill that the chitmunks had told them they would come to; and they were in good spirits, as they now expected to find plenty of good things laid up for them to eat, so they went in by the door of the mill.

"Dear me, what a dust there is!", said Nimble, looking about him; "I think it must be snowing."

"Snow does not fall in hot weather," said Velvet; "besides, this white powder is very sweet and nice;" and she began to lick some of the flour that lay in the cracks of the floor.

"I have found some nice seeds here," said Nimble, running to the top of a sack that stood with the mouth untied; "these are better than pine-kernels, and not so hard. We must have come to one of the great grain-stores that our cousin told us of. Well, I am sure the people are very kind to have laid up so many good things for us squirrels."

When they had eaten as much as they liked, they began to run about to see what was in the mill. Presently, a man came in, and they saw him take one of the sacks of wheat, and pour it into a large upright box, and in a few minutes there was a great noise—a sort of buzzing, whirring, rumbling, dashing, and splashing;—and away ran Velvet-paw in a terrible fright, and scrambled up some beams and rafters to the top of the wall, where she sat watching what was going—on, trembling all over; but finding that no harm happened to her, took courage, and after a time ceased to be afraid. She saw Nimble perched on a cross-beam looking down very intently at something; so she came out of her corner and ran to him, and asked what he was looking at.

"There is a great black thing here," said he, "I cannot tell what to make of him at all; it turns round, and round, and round, and dashes the water about, making a fine splash." (This was the water-wheel.)

"It looks very ugly indeed," said Velvet-paw, "and makes my head giddy to look at it; let us go away. I want to find out what these two big stones are doing," said she; "they keep rubbing against one another, and making a great noise."

"There is nothing so wonderful in two big stones, my dear," said Nimble;
"I have seen plenty bigger than these in Stony Lake."

"But they did not move about as these do; and only look here at the white stuff that is running down all the time into this great box. Well, we shall not want for food for the rest of our lives; I wish poor Silvy were with us to share in our good luck."

They saw a great many other strange things in the mill, and they thought that the miller was a very funny-looking creature; but as they fancied that he was grinding the wheat into flour for them, they were not much afraid of him; they were more troubled at the sight of a black dog, which spied them out as they sat on the beams of the mill, and ran about in a great rage, barking at them in a frightful way, and never left off till the miller went out of the mill, when he went away with his master, and did not return till the next day; but whenever he saw the grey squirrels, this little dog, whose name was "Pinch," was sure to set up his ears and tail, and snap and bark, showing all his sharp white teeth in a very savage manner.

Not far from the mill was another building: this was the house the miller lived in; and close by the house was a barn, a stable, a cow-shed, and a sheep-pen, and there was a garden full of fruit and flowers, and an orchard of apple-trees close by.

One day Velvet-paw ran up one of the apple-trees and began to eat an apple; it looked very good, for it had a bright red cheek, but it was hard and sour, not being ripe. "I do not like these big, sour berries," said she, making wry faces as she tried to get the bad taste out of her mouth by wiping her tongue on her fore-paw. Nimble had found some ripe currants; so he only laughed at poor Velvet for the trouble she was in.

These little grey squirrels now led a merry life; they found plenty to eat and drink, and would not have had a care in the world, if it had not been for the noisy little dog Pinch, who let them have no quiet, barking and baying at them whenever he saw them; and also for the watchful eyes of a great tom-cat, who was always prowling about the mill, or creeping round the orchard and outhouses; so that with all their good food they were not quite free from causes of fear, and no doubt sometimes wished themselves safe back on the little rocky island, in their nest in the old oak-tree.

Time passed away—the wheat and the oats were now ripe and fit for the scythe, for in Canada the settlers mow wheat with an instrument called a "cradle scythe." The beautiful Indian corn was in bloom, and its long pale green silken threads were waving in the summer breeze. The blue-jays were busy in the fields of wheat; so were the red-winged blackbirds, and the sparrows, and many other birds, great and small; field-mice in dozens were cutting the straw with their sharp teeth, and carrying off the grain to their nests; and as to the squirrels and chitmunks, there were scores of them, black, red, and grey, filling their cheeks with the grain, and laying it out on the rail fences and on the top of the stumps to dry, before they carried it away to their storehouses. And many a battle the red and the black squirrels had, and sometimes the grey joined with the red, to beat the black ones off the ground.

Nimble-foot and his sister kept out of these quarrels as much as they could; but once they got a severe beating from the red squirrels for not helping them to drive off the saucy black ones, who would carry away the little heaps of wheat, as soon as they were dry.

"We do not mean to trouble ourselves with laying up winter stores," said Nimble one day to his red cousins; "don't you see Peter, the miller's man, has got a great wagon and horses, and is carting wheat into the barn for us?"

The red squirrel opened his round eyes very wide at this speech. "Why, Cousin Nimble," he said, "you are not so foolish as to think the miller is harvesting that grain for your use. No, no, my friend; if you want any, you must work as we do, or run the chance of starving in the winter."

Then Nimble told him what their cousin Blackie had said. "You were wise fellows to believe such nonsense!" said the red squirrel. "These mills and barns are all stored for the use of the miller and his family; and what is more, my friend, I can tell you that men are no great friends to us poor squirrels, and will kill us when they get the chance, and begrudge us the grain we help ourselves to."

"Well, that is very stingy," said Velvet-paw; "I am sure there is enough for men and squirrels too. However, I suppose all must live, so we will let them have what we leave; I shall help myself after they have stored it up in yonder barn."

"You had better do as we do, and make hay while the sun shines," said the red squirrel.

"I would rather play in the sunshine, and eat what I want here," said idle Velvet-paw, setting up her fine tail like a feather over her back, as she ate an ear of corn.

"You are a foolish, idle thing, and will come to no good," said the red squirrel. "I wonder where you were brought up?"

I am very sorry to relate that Velvet-paw did not come to a good end, for she did not take the advice of her red cousin, to lay up provisions during the harvest; but instead of that, she ate all day long, and grew fat and lazy; and after the fields were all cleared, she went to the mill one day, when the mill was grinding, and seeing a quantity of wheat in the feeder of the mill, she ran up a beam and jumped down, thinking to make a good dinner from the grain she saw; but it kept sliding down and sliding down so fast, that she could not get one grain, so at last she began to be frightened, and tried to get up again, but, alas! this was not possible. She cried out to Nimble to help her; and while he ran to look for a stick for her to raise herself up by, the mill-wheel kept on turning, and the great stones went round faster and faster, till poor Velvet-paw was crushed to death between them. Nimble was now left all alone, and sad enough he was, you may suppose.

"Ah," said he, "idleness is the ruin of grey squirrels, as well as men, so I will go away from this place, and try and earn an honest living in the forest. I wish I had not believed all the fine tales my cousin the black squirrel told me."

Then Nimble went away from the clearing, and once more resolved to seek his fortune in the woods. He knew there were plenty butter-nuts, acorns, hickory-nuts, and beech-nuts, to be found, besides many sorts of berries; and he very diligently set to work to lay up stores against the coming winter.

As it was now getting cold at night, Nimble-foot thought it would be wise to make himself a warm house; so he found out a tall hemlock-pine that was very thick and bushy at the top; there was a forked branch in the tree, with a hollow just fit for his nest. He carried twigs of birch and beech, and over these he laid dry green moss, which he collected on the north side of the cedar-trees, and some long grey moss that he found on the swamp maples, and then he stripped the silky threads from the milk-weeds, and the bark of the cedar and birch-trees. These he gnawed fine, and soon made a soft bed; he wove and twisted the sticks, and roots, and mosses together, till the walls of his house were quite thick, and he made a sort of thatch over the top with dry leaves and long moss, with a round hole to creep in and out of.

Making this warm house took him many days' labour; but many strokes will fell great oaks, so at last Nimble-foot's work came to an end, and he had the comfort of a charming house to shelter him from the cold season. He laid up a good store of nuts, acorns, and roots: some he put in a hollow branch of the hemlock-tree close to his nest; some he hid in a stump, and another store he laid under the roots of a mossy cedar. When all this was done, he began to feet very lonely, and often wished no doubt that he had had his sisters Silvy and Velvet-paw with him, to share his nice warm house; but of Silvy he knew nothing, and poor Velvet-paw was dead.

One fine moonlight night, as Nimble was frisking about on the bough of a birch-tree, not very far from his house in the hemlock, he saw a canoe land on the shore of the lake, and some Indians with an axe cut down some bushes, and having cleared a small piece of ground, begin to sharpen, the ends of some long poles. These they stuck into the ground close together in a circle; and having stripped some sheets of birch-bark from the birch-trees close by, they thatched the sides of the hut, and made a fire of sticks inside. They had a dead deer in the canoe, and there were several hares and black squirrels, the sight of which rather alarmed Nimble; for he thought if they killed one sort of squirrel, they might another, and he was very much scared at one of the Indians firing off a gun close by him. The noise made him fall down to the ground, and it was a good thing that it was dark among the leaves and grass where the trunk of the tree threw its long shadow, so that the Indian did not see him, or perhaps he might have loaded the gun again, and shot our little friend, and made soup of him for his supper.

Nimble ran swiftly up a pine-tree, and was soon out of danger. While he was watching some of the Indian children at play, he saw a girl come out of the hut with a grey squirrel in her arms; it did not seem at all afraid of her, but nestled to her shoulder, and even ate out of her hand; and what was Nimble's surprise to see that this tame grey squirrel was none other than his own pretty sister Silver-nose, whom he had left in the hollow tree when they both ran away from the red squirrel.

You may suppose the sight of his lost companion was a joyful one; he waited for a long, long time, till the fire went out, and all the Indians were fast asleep, and little Silvy came out to play in the moonlight, and frisk about on the dewy grass as she used to do. Then Nimble, when he saw her, ran down the tree, and came to her and rubbed his nose against her, and licked her soft fur, and told her who he was, and how sorry he was for having left her in so cowardly a manner, to be beaten by the red squirrel.

The good little Silvy told Nimble not to fret about what was past, and then she asked him for her sister Velvet-paw. Nimble had a long sorrowful tale to tell about the death of poor Velvet; and Silvy was much grieved. Then in her turn she told Nimble all her adventures, and how she had been caught by the Indian, girl, and kept, and fed, and tamed, and had passed her time very happily, if it had not been for thinking about her dear lost companions. "But now," she said, "my dear brother, we will never, part again; you shall be quite welcome, to share my cage, and my nice stores of Indian corn, rice, and nuts, which my kind mistress gives me."

"I would not be shut up in a cage, not even for one day," said Nimble, "for all the nice and grain in Canada. I am a free squirrel, and love my liberty. I would not exchange a life of freedom in these fine old woods, for all the dainties in the world. So, Silvy, if you prefer a life of idleness and ease to living with me in the forest, I must say good-bye to you."

"But there is nothing to hurt us, my dear Nimble—no racoons, nor foxes, nor hawks, nor owls, nor weasels; if I see any hungry-looking birds or beasts, I have a safe place to run to, and never need be hungry!"

"I would not lead a life like that, for the world," said Nimble. "I should die of dullness; if there is danger in a life of freedom, there is pleasure too, which you cannot enjoy, shut up in a wooden cage, and fed at the will of a master or mistress."

"Well, I shall be shot if the Indians awake and see me; so I shall be off."

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 went on and read 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 grass, 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 passed 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, above which they were sporting. 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 death-like 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 woodpecker, 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 shall 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 tassels, 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 wood-thrush, the merry note of the chiccadee, and plaintive cry of the pheobe, with loud hammering strokes of the great red-headed woodpecker, mingled with the rush of the unbound forest streams, gurgling and murmuring as their water flowed over the stones, and the sighing of the breeze, playing in the tree-tops, made pleasant and ceaseless music. And then as time passed 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 hoary trunks of trees come forth the speckled night-hawks, cutting the air with their thin sharp wide wings, and open beak, ready to entrap the unwary moth, or moskitoe, 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 tree-tops, 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 hoarse bass 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 hold 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 old 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 re-commence 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 dare say neither Nimble nor Silvy were in the least annoyed by the hoarse 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 passed 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 grey squirrels, though full of grief and vain regret, were obliged to take care of themselves. There was, indeed, no time to fee lost, so they 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 grey ones, which are 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."