Of course she was disappointed when she saw only Hazel and Bushy-Tail!
“They are city squirrels,” she told Mr. Bat. “We have only red ones here in the woods. I can’t imagine how these little squirrels got so far from home alone.”
“How worried their mothers must be,” she thought to herself and that settled it. She took them by the shoulders and shook them very gently and when they opened their eyes and saw the fire-fly and Mr. Bat and Mrs. Red Squirrel, for just a moment they thought they were dreaming.
But when Mrs. Red Squirrel questioned them, all she could make out between their sobs was that they were lost and wanted to go home.
“You poor, dear little things,” she said, hugging them in her soft arms, “come home with me to-night and we will help you find your mothers in the morning.”
I can tell you it seemed good to the little runaways to be among kind friends again, and when Mrs. Squirrel saw four little squirrels all curled up together in her house, she was most as happy as if they had been four red ones, instead of two red and two gray.
MRS. SCREECH OWL
IT was so much darker in the woods than in the park the little city squirrels could hardly believe it was time to get up when Mother Red Squirrel called them. But after they had washed the sleepiness out of their eyes they could see little pink patches of sky through the leaves and they knew the clock was not fast after all.