Caleb hesitated a good deal before he finally decided to give Mary Anna his squirrel, and he tried to stipulate with her, that is, make her agree, that she would not let him go; but Mary Anna would not make any such agreement. She said that if she had the little fellow at all, she must have him for her own, without any condition whatever; and Caleb, at length, finding the elegance of the Chinese junk irresistible, decided to make the trade.
And now for Marianna's plan. She liked to see the squirrel very much; she admired his graceful movements, his beautiful grey colour, and his bushy tail, curled over his back, like a plume. But then she did not like to have him a prisoner. She knew that he must love a life of freedom,—rambling among the trees, climbing up to the topmost branches, and leaping from limb to limb; and it was painful to her to think of his being shut up in a cage. And yet she did not like to let him go, for then she knew that in all probability he would run off to the woods, and she would see him no more.
It happened that one limb of the great elm before the house was hollow for a considerable distance up from the trunk of the tree, and there was a hole leading into this hollow limb at the crotch, where the limb grew out from the tree. She thought that this would make a fine house for the squirrel, if he could only be induced to think so himself, and live there. It occurred to her that she might put him in, and fasten up the hole with wires for a time, like a cage; and she thought that if she kept him shut up there, and fed him there with plenty of nuts and corn, for a week or two, he would gradually forget his old home in the woods, and get wonted to his new one.
After thinking of several ways of fastening up the mouth of the hole, she concluded finally on the following plan. She got some small nails, and drove them in pretty near together on each side of the hole, and then she took a long piece of fine wire, and passed it across from one to the other, in such a manner as to cover the mouth of the hole with a sort of net-work of wire. She then got Raymond to put the squirrel in through a place which she left open for that purpose, and then she closed this place up like the rest, with wires. The squirrel ran up into the limb, and disappeared.
When the boys came and saw the ingenious cage which Mary Anna had contrived, they thought it was an excellent plan; and they asked her if she was not afraid that when she opened the cage door, he would run off into the woods again. She said she was very much afraid that he would, but that still there was a possibility that he might stay; and if he should, she should often see him from her window, running about the tree, and she should take so much more pleasure in that than in seeing him shut up in a cage, that she thought she should prefer to take the risk. She made the boys promise not to go to the hole, for fear they might frighten him, and she said she meant to feed him herself every day, with nuts and corn, and try to get him tame before she took away the wires.
The children felt a good deal of curiosity to see whether the squirrel would stay in the tree or run away, when Mary Anna should open his cage door; and after a few days, they were eager to have her try the experiment. But she said, no. She wished to let him have full time to become well accustomed to his new home.
Mary Anna generally went early in the morning to feed the squirrel,—before the boys were up. Then she fed him again after they had gone to school, and also just before they came home at night. She knew that if she fed him when they were at home, they would want to go with her; and it would frighten the squirrel to see so many strange faces,—even if the boys should try to be as still as possible.
One morning, Mary Anna and the boys were down near the mole, and were talking about the squirrel. David and Dwight were sailing their boats, and Mary Anna was sitting with Caleb upon a bench which David had made for his mother, close to the shore. Caleb's junk was upon the ground by his side. Caleb asked Mary Anna when she was going to let her squirrel out.
“O, I don't know,” said she, “perhaps in a week more.”
“A week!” said Dwight, pushing his boat off from the shore, “I wouldn't wait so long as that.”