The red squirrels are a little hoarse already; they have been caught by a little one earlier in the season and they have no mind to add to it. So they stay snug. They have made their winter nests now, often in the close, crinkly limbs of a large birch, often in a good-sized cedar that stands well among other trees, that they may have easy access to the squirrel highway. Some of them are in hollow trees and others still have taken a crow’s nest for their foundation and have built a dome over it.
Wherever it is placed the material and architecture is the same,—a soft, silky lining of the finest shreds of the loose-hanging outer bark of the red cedar, wound round and round with coarser fiber of the same material, the whole making a round ball as big as a derby hat, or bigger, the walls being several inches thick. Entrance to this is by a round hole, just big enough for the slender animal to squeeze in from a convenient limb. The elasticity of the cedar fiber practically closes this hole after the squirrel has passed, and the family may cuddle together there snug through the coldest snap.
On a bright frosty morning you may hear the shrill pæan of the red squirrel ringing through the wood as soon as he can see. Then he is out and alert. On mornings like this when the chill fog hangs dense I never hear him, and I am quite sure he sticks close to his family, cuddled up in comfort in the middle of that warm nest.
The morning light breaks through such a vast cold cloud with difficulty, indeed we may not truthfully say that the morning breaks. Rather, it oozes, coming so slowly that without a watch in the pocket you would not know the lateness of the hour. By-and-by, if you watch the east carefully, you will be surprised to see how high the pale image of a morning sun is riding.
On such a morning few leaves fall. The chill dampness seems to revive their waning energies and they apply them to clinging just where they are. Perhaps the chill reminds them dimly that they still are protectors of next year’s leaf buds that nestle close under most leafstalks and may be injured if the leaf is torn away too soon. These are well wrapped in tiny fur overcoats or resinous wrappers, to be sure, but I think, as the leaves seem to, that if anything could penetrate these clever coverings it would be one of these morning fogs which mark the passing of October.
But, though to us who stand at the bottom of the fog that ghostly image of a morning sun looks pale and impotent, its work is really vigorous and aggressive. Looking down on it from a sufficiently high hill we may see it shredding the upper surface into breakfast food and eating its way so rapidly downward that the rolling billows of mist ebb before its rays like a Bay of Fundy tide.
Long before mid-forenoon it has finished its repast. From below the fog seems to gradually grow warmer and to be dissolved in its own moisture. The frost that crisped underfoot before the mists began to shiver together in the lowlands now glistens as dew under the yellow sun. The day warms toward the noon and we note with satisfaction what a perfect one it is. But not till the little winds of afternoon begin to bustle in among the trees do the leaves again begin to fall. The moisture is again dried out of their petioles and the xylophone solo tattoos once more the elfin tune to which they march on.
But now they do not go shuddering and in superstitious terror. Instead, there is a lilt to the music and they dance their way down. Some jig it alone. Others waltz cosily; but by far the larger number like best the sociable square dance and foot it in groups to the merry-go-round of the Portland Fancy. It is in such mood that we like best to say good-by to them.