CHAPTER XII.
SQUIRRELS.
‘WE have had such a nice walk, grandmamma!’ said Alice, entering the room. ‘We went first with Mary to the village, and she bought herself some needles and pins, and some cotton; and then we left those books, which you gave us, at the rectory; and we saw Mr. Potter’s beautiful garden, which goes up that steep hill by the house. There were such a number of roses in full blossom!
‘We walked a little way into Branscombe parish, and there was a big stone, and Mary told us that it was there to show where Salcombe and Branscombe met. It was so funny for Beatrice and me to jump in and out of Salcombe! How can people divide places?’
‘Places or parishes or countries that cannot be divided by water must be divided by landmarks. These landmarks are sometimes large stones, sometimes an old tree, or a line of trees, or a wooden post; but water divides the best.
‘I remember, when I was young, travelling from Belgium into Prussia, and only a post painted with each country’s colours served to show us where Belgium ended and where Prussia began; and my sisters and I thought it fun to jump with one step from one country into another, as you did to-day from one parish into another.
‘Because England is an island, and is separated by the sea from other countries, English people think it strange that nothing more than a stone or a post can serve as boundary between two strange countries; and that the people on the one side of the stone or post should speak one language, and on the other should speak another language. Some countries are divided by a chain of mountains, as the Pyrenees divide France from Spain; the Alps, France from Italy. You have learnt about these chains of mountains, my Alice, and to-morrow you shall show me on the map the different mountain boundaries.’
‘But we came home by the wood, grandmamma,’ said Beatrice, ‘and we saw such pretty creatures jumping about in the trees.’
‘Mary called them squirrels,’ said Alice. ‘They were so pretty, and jumped from one tree to another such long jumps, and swung backwards and forwards on such little branches that we were afraid that they would fall down.’
‘Squirrels are very pretty, interesting little animals,’ said grandmamma, ‘and live in the woods; and I think that they like fir-trees most, for I have seen them often in a fir wood, and I know that they eat the seeds of the spruce fir—you have seen the pretty long cones—and the squirrel bites the cones asunder and eats the seeds.