The Gray Squirrel 145 
There is an old orchard that I have known for 
years, where the gray squirrels have a regular play- 
ground in the autumn. It is connected with a piece 
of woods by a fence, and this fence is the grand high- 
way of all the squirrel tribe. During their earlier 
visits to the orchard they come and go silently as if 
on wing. When most of the apples are gathered, 
and the frost has touched the leaves, leaving them sere 
and russet, there is in the atmosphere a crispness 
which has awakened the rollicking spirit in the gray 
squirrels. No longer do they follow the old fence, 
but cut across lots, chasing each other in and out, 
now on this side, now on that, on the way to the tree 
tops in the orchard. Here, while searching for food 
in the first light of the morning, they frolic, leaping 
from branch to branch, and chattering and scolding 
like a lot of magpies. If left undisturbed, they re- 
main until the sun is more than an hour high, when 
they begin to retreat to their forest homes in the 
same jubilant manner in which they came. On 
reaching the forest, for another half hour they race 
through the tree tops before retiring. 
If perchance, having found your way into the 
forest before them to await their coming, you disturb 
them in their frolic, they will instantly vanish from 
sight behind the tree trunks or the shielding branches. 
