THESE are among the lessons that a mother Squirrel, by example, teaches, and that in case of failure are emphasized by many little reproofs of voice, or even blows:
Clean your coat, and extra-clean your tail; fluff it out, try its trig suppleness, wave it, plume it, comb it, clean it; but ever remember it, for it is your beauty and your life.
When there is danger on the ground, such as the trampling of heavy feet, do not go to spy it out, but hide. If near a hole, pop in; if on a big high limb, lie flat and still as death. Do not go to it. Let it come to you, if it will.
In the air, if there is danger near, as from Hawks, do not stop until you have at least got into a dense thicket, or, better still, a hole.
If you find a nut when you are not hungry, bury it for future use. Nevertheless this lesson counted for but little now, as all last year's nuts were gone, and this year's far ahead.
If you must travel on the ground, stop every little while at some high place to look around, and fail not then each time to fluff and jerk your tail.
When in the distant limbs you see something that may be friend or foe, keep out of sight, but flirt your white tail tip in his view. If it be a Graycoat, it will answer with the same, the wigwag: "I'm a Squirrel, too."
THE LITTLE SQUIRRELS AT SCHOOL