The dormice were two soft, brown creatures, almost as pretty and as innocent as the squirrel, and a great deal tamer; and they were called Jeannette and Jeannot, and would come when they were called by their names, and take a bit of cake or a lump of sugar out of the fingers of their little mistress. Lady Mary had two canaries, Dick and Pet; and she loved her dormice and birds, and her new pet, the flying squirrel, very much, and never let them want for food, or water, or any nice thing she could get for them. She liked the history of the gray squirrels very much, and was quite eager to get her book the next afternoon, to read the second part of the adventures and wanderings of the family.
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PART II.
WHICH TELLS HOW THE GRAY SQUIRRELS GET ON WHILE THEY REMAINED ON PIKE ISLAND—HOW THEY BEHAVED TO THEIR POOR RELATIONS, THE CHITMUNKS—AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM IN THE FOREST.
It was noon when the little squirrels awoke, and, of course, they were quite ready for their breakfast; but there was no good, kind old mother to provide for their wants, and to bring nuts, acorns, roots, or fruit for them; they must now get up, go forth, and seek food for themselves. When Velvet-paw and Silver-nose went to call Nimble-foot, they were surprised to find his nest empty; but after searching a long while, they found him sitting on the root of an up-turned tree, looking at a family of little chitmunks busily picking over the pine-cones on the ground; but as soon as one of the poor little fellows, with great labour, had dug out a kernel, and was preparing to eat it, down leaped Nimble-foot and carried off the prize; and if one of the little chitmunks ventured to say a word, he very uncivilly gave him a scratch, or bit his ears, calling him a mean, shabby fellow.
Now the chitmunks were really very pretty. They were, to be sure, not more than half the size of the gray squirrels, and their fur was short, without the soft, thick glossy look upon it of the gray squirrels'. They were of a lively, tawny yellow-brown colour, with long black and white stripes down their backs; their tails were not so long nor so thickly furred; and instead of living in the trees, they made their nests in logs and windfalls, and had their granaries and winter houses too underground, where they made warm nests of dried moss and grass and thistledown; to these they had several entrances, so that they had always a chance of refuge if danger were nigh. Like the dormice, flying squirrels, and ground hogs, they slept soundly during the cold weather, only awakening when the warm spring sun had melted the snow. [Footnote: It is not quite certain that the chitmunk is a true squirrel, and he is sometimes called a striped rat. This pretty animal seems, indeed, to form a link between the rat and squirrel.]
The vain little gray squirrels thought themselves much better than these little chitmunks, whom they treated with very little politeness, laughing at them for living in holes in the ground, instead of upon lofty trees, as they did; they even called them low-bred fellows, and wondered why they did not imitate their high-breeding and behaviour.
The chitmunks took very little notice of their rudeness, but merely said that, if being high-bred made people rude, they would rather remain humble as they were.
"As we are the head of all the squirrel families," said Silver-nose, "we shall do you the honour of breakfasting with you to-day."
"We breakfasted hours ago, while you lazy fellows were fast asleep," replied an old chitmunk, poking his little nose out of a hole in the ground.