NIGHT.
Upon awaking, Minnie was surprised to find all dark about her. The good old squirrel had tucked the moss of her couch together so nicely that she was warm and comfortable; but, on reaching out a hand, she felt the leaves wet with dew.
Then a wind stirred the branches, and far up in the sky she saw the twinkling stars, and knew that it was night.
Night, and the little girl was alone there out of doors! No mother in the next room listening to see if her children breathed sweetly, and all was well; no sister Allie to nestle close beside her, now; but the great lonely sky above her, and the creaking elm-bough for her cradle.
And how high this cradle lifted her into the air! She hardly knew which was farthest off, the ground or the sky. It was all so strange that Minnie thought she must be dreaming. She stretched her hands out in the starlight; they were small as squirrels' paws,—ten times smaller than even baby Allie's dimpled hands,—small as those of her smallest doll. Who ever heard of such hands for a little girl?
Yes, she felt sure it was a dream; but, turning to sleep, she was aroused by a loud snoring. Could a man be hidden up here among the boughs? And suppose he should catch her alive, and shut her up in a cage, to be advertised, and talked about, and pointed at with canes and parasols in Barnum's museum?
But now the snores seemed changing to sounds more like the purring of a cat. Were not tigers a kind of cat? Suppose this were a tiger, ready to spring down and seize her in his great paws, as a cat might seize a mouse!
No; there came next a loud, rough laugh, startling to hear in the silence; and then a great flutter, and a scratching sound, and something alighted on the bough above her—something heavy, for the bough bent till its leaves were crushed upon her face.
As soon as Minnie could push the leaves apart she looked up, and saw to her dismay two great round eyes staring full at her! She covered her own eyes, and in her terror would have fallen from the tree, had not her dress been caught among the leaves.
"What's that? What's that?" a gruff voice called.