Some one brought warmed milk in a soup plate, and we placed the seven wee things round it, dipping their noses in, as one does with kittens, to make them lap. Three tackled the food at once; tiny pink tongues shot out, tiny tails curled comfortably over backs. The others were too feeble, and too young to understand; they were palpitating, and fell over as fast as they were put upon their four legs. Poor little innocents, taken away far too young from their mothers and their dark, warm nests! I saw they would not live; already two were in convulsions.
I was furious with the boy. But what was to be done? He had already sold most of them for a shilling apiece, on condition he reared them for the first week himself. He had heard that I knew all about squirrels, and came to me for instructions about food.
I warned him as emphatically as I knew how against overfeeding, and pointed out the absolute necessity of plenty of sleep, warmth, and no handling. But what was the use? He had seven little brothers and sisters at home. They all wanted to cuddle the squirrels; they all wanted to feed them. Two died that evening, three followed their example next day, and by the day after not one was left alive.
It was impossible for me to have taken them myself. I was going a long journey to friends—whom I love, but whose prime aversion is pet animals! Our house was being shut up, and Smithers, with all his kindness and patience, firmly declined a responsibility in my absence that entailed getting up at 4 a.m. to give food, and that in any case was by no means an easy task. Baby squirrels are notoriously difficult to rear.
Later in the month found me once more established with books and work in my old summer quarters under the weeping beech on the lawn.
The beech had been, as usual, the last to come out; while larches, limes, and chestnuts had flung open their treasures and burst into spring loveliness almost before the middle of that wonderful April, the beech, still shrinking and coy, had kept her little brown sheaths wrapped tightly round her buds. But by the second week in May, after “Winter’s tail” had fled, she hung out all her delicate green; and her swaying tresses swept the turf around me, as I sat alone in the sweetness and promise of yet another spring.
