VII
You ought to hear, you ought to catch, I should say, a good round scolding from the red squirrel this fall. A red squirrel is always ready to scold you (and doubtless you are always in need of his scolding), but he is never so breathless and emphatic as in the fall. “Whose nuts are these in the woods?” he asks, as you come up with your stick and bag. “Who found this tree first? Come, get out of here! Get right back to the city and eat peanuts! Come, do you hear? Get out of this!”
No, don’t be afraid; he won’t “eat you alive”—though I think he might if he were big enough. He won’t blow up, either, and burst! He is the kind of fire-cracker that you call a “sizzler”—all sputter and no explosion. But isn’t he a tempest! Isn’t he a whirlwind! Isn’t he a red-coated cyclone! Let him blow! The little scamp, he steals birds’ eggs in the summer, they say; but there are none now for him to steal, and the woods are very empty. We need a dash of him on these autumn days, as we need a dash of spice in our food.
In the far western mountains he has a cousin called the Douglas squirrel; and Mr. John Muir calls him “the brightest of all the squirrels I have ever seen, a hot spark of life, making every tree tingle with his prickly toes, a condensed nugget of fresh mountain vigor and valor, as free from disease as a sunbeam. How he scolds, and what faces he makes, all eyes, teeth, and whiskers!”
You must hear him this fall and take your scolding, whether you deserve it or not.