72 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



Here five or six young mice are born, and stay until the 

 coming of warm weather, by which time they are grown, 

 and go out to take care of themselves. Sometimes one of 

 them, instead of hunting up a wife and getting a home of 

 his own, will wander off by himself and live alone like a 

 hermit, growing crosser as he grows older. 



In the deepest part of the burrow is placed their store of 

 provisions. Uncover one of these little granaries in Novem- 

 ber, before the owners have used much of it, and you might 

 find five or six quarts of seeds, roots, and small nuts. Out 

 on the prairie this store would consist chiefly of the round 

 tubers like very small potatoes- -of the spike-flower, a few 

 juicy roots of some other w r eeds and grasses, bulbs of the 

 wild onion, and so forth. If a wheat or rye patch w r as near, 

 there would be quantities of grain ; and if you should open 

 a nest under a log or stump in the woods, you might dis- 

 cover a hundred or so chestnuts, beech -nuts, and acorns, 

 nicely shelled. All these stores are carried to the burrows, 

 often from long distances, in their baggy cheeks, which are 

 a mouse's pockets, and they work with immense industry, 

 knowing just when to gather this and that kind of food for 

 the winter. A friend of mine, who had a farm near the 

 Hudson River, had a nice field of rye, which he was only 

 waiting a day or two longer to harvest until it should be 



