“Why, what’s the matter, Mother?” asked Mr. Squirrel, in the queer, chattering language he and his wife used. “Why are you in such a hurry this morning? See, you have dropped a lot of nuts!”
He looked out over the edge of the nest, down to the ground, where he saw some of the nuts Mrs. Squirrel had dropped. She had been bringing them home for breakfast.
“What made you run so?” asked Mr. Squirrel, who had stayed home with the little ones, while his wife went after nuts.
“Well, I guess you’d have hurried too,” said the mamma squirrel, “if you saw what I saw!”
“What was it?” asked Mr. Squirrel, and he pulled his head in from the nest-hole, so that if any bad animals were down below on the ground they could not see him.
“It was a man, with a dog and a gun,” said Mrs. Squirrel. “He was out hunting, and I’m almost sure he saw me!”
“My, that would be too bad!” exclaimed Mr. Squirrel. “Do you think he followed you to shoot you?”
“I hope not,” said Mrs. Squirrel. “I ran as fast as I could when I saw him, and I did not hear his gun go off, but I did hear the dog bark.”
“Hum!” said Mr. Squirrel, in his own language, and he seemed as worried as your papa might be if he heard there was a bad animal, or a runaway horse, coming after you. “So the hunter did not shoot his gun, eh?”