“Why don’t you move somewhere else yourself?” asked the old squirrel patiently.
“Because this is my tree! These are my woods! This is my home! My family and friends all live right around here. What a question to ask! Why should I move? Why should I go some place else?” he barked, his tail jerking angrily at every phrase.
“Don’t you see,” the old squirrel chittered mildly, “that we love our homes? Why, every last one of us had our own tree that no one else ever dreamed of intruding upon, except to run through the branches when it didn’t seem safe on the ground. Of course we never objected to anyone running across our back yard if he had to. But no one ever dreamed of touching our stores. Why, we knew every twig and knothole, and every place a nut was hidden. I assure you we never would have left our homes if we hadn’t been driven to it. But I can see your heart has never been softened by trouble. You have had life too easy here.” But Douglas was not listening. He had started down to fight and threaten and try to drive a family of half-starved refugees from some stores he had thought safely hidden along the under side of a log. Mrs. Douglas, ashamed of her mate, stayed close to her nest, though she saw her pantries being invaded. “I do hope Douglas won’t give them a wrong impression about our family,” she told herself.
Just then Chinook, the little brown bear, came along. “I’ll eat you alive!” he challenged Douglas, and started merrily after him. By the time Douglas had thrown his pursuer off the track and returned to the scene, his stores had been raided by dozens of immigrant squirrels.
“Now I’ll have to work hard all fall,” Douglas complained to any who might listen, “to collect enough for winter.”
“Why not?” called the old squirrel. “It isn’t the way of the woods to corner more than you can eat. What right had you to those nuts, when others were starving? No one will bother your cache if you keep it down to a reasonable size, but beyond that, these woods are for all. If anything, it is you red squirrels who do the stealing from us gray squirrels,”
What Douglas retorted wouldn’t be fit to print.
“My!” chirped a young gray squirrel who had been down getting a quick lunch. He had been following his more experienced fellow refugee for miles. “I had the awfullest time crossing the open spaces! Did you ever see so many hawks and owls in your life?”
“That is why I always went around the long way where I could leap from one tree to another,” said the old squirrel. “We didn’t cross half as many open spaces as some of those young fellows who got caught.”
“How ever did you know where to go?” marvelled the young squirrel.