When she felt the tiny claws of her baby clutching her fur she looked down between her fore paws at the little mouse-like fellow.
Then with her smooth pink hands she gently pushed him back into the pocket and closed the opening. He was not big enough yet to come out of the warm dark nursery.
So for a week longer he cuddled down beside the others, while they all slept and drank more milk and grew stronger every hour.
The biggest baby was so restless that he scrambled around and crowded the others. Once he caught hold of a tiny tail between the thumbs and fingers of his hind feet, and pulled till the little one squeaked. His fore feet were like tiny hands without any thumbs.
At last, one day, he saw the edge of the pocket open a crack. He was so glad that he climbed up as fast as he could scramble, and pushed outside. He held on to his mother’s fur with all four feet.
When she reached down to smell him the bristles on her lips tickled his nose. Then he climbed around upon her back and twisted his tail about hers to hold him steady.
He looked like a mouse with his long tail, his black ears, his bright eyes twinkling in his little white face, and his pointed nose.
In a few minutes another and another baby followed the big brother and clung there on the mother’s furry back. It must have seemed a noisy place to them, for in the pocket they had heard only the soft rustling and scratching of the mother’s feet on the nest.
Now they could hear a chirping, and a squeaking, and a rattling of branches. They crowded close together in fright at the scream of a blue jay, as it chased a chattering red squirrel through the tree-top.