Sometimes one or another missed his footing after a reckless jump. Often he caught hold of a branch below by a single toe and lifted himself up to a firmer foothold.
Or, if there was no branch within reach, he spread out his fur, and flattened his tail, and went sailing down to the ground, almost as if he could fly. They never seemed to get hurt.
The little squirrels seemed to be always doing something. They turned somersaults in the grass, or swung by one paw from the tip of a tough branch.
There was always something to do or to see. Now they chattered at a blue jay, or chased a toad for the fun of watching him hop. Now they caught beetles or scolded at a fox slinking along through the woods. And every day there was the excitement of finding something to eat.
The babies lived on milk till they were almost as heavy as their mother. Then she began to feed them with fruit and buds and grubs, which she first chewed for them.
Like the beavers and the hares and rabbits, each had four chisel teeth in the front of its mouth. They needed to gnaw hard nuts or bark every day to keep these teeth from growing too long.
The young squirrels were three months old in July and were then big enough to take care of themselves. Away they scampered from the old home tree and found new homes in stumps and hollows. The smallest one used to curl up in an old robin’s nest to sleep at night.
All day long they were as busy as they could be. There were cones to be gathered from the evergreens. The little squirrels ran up the trees in a hurry, and, cutting off the cones with their sharp teeth, tossed them over their shoulders to the ground. Every few minutes they scurried down to bury the cones under the pine needles for the winter.
Sometimes a drop of sticky pitch from the cut stems was rubbed against their fur. That made them so uncomfortable that they had to stop and lick it off.
The squirrels loved to be clean. Ever since they were tiny babies, with their new red fur, they always helped one another with washing their faces and combing their tails with their claws.