58 THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 



into this wild wood without making quite a stir and excite- 

 ment among the inhabitants that lived there before. All 

 the time it was building, there was the greatest possible 

 commotion in the breasts of all the older population ; and 

 there was n't even a black ant, or a cricket, that did not 

 have his own opinion about it, and did not tell the other 

 ants and crickets just what he thought the world was 

 coming to in consequence. 



Old Mrs. Rabbit declared that the hammering and pound- 

 ing made her nervous, and gave her most melancholy fore- 

 bodings of evil times. " Depend upon it, children," she 

 said to her long-eared family, "no good will come to us 

 from this establishment. Where man is, there comes always 

 trouble for us poor rabbits." 



The old chestnut-tree, that grew on the edge of the 

 woodland ravine, drew a great sigh which shook all his 

 leaves, and expressed it as his conviction that no good 

 would ever come of it, a conviction that at once struck 

 to the heart of every chestnut-burr. The squirrels talked 

 together of the dreadful state of things that would ensue. 

 "Why!" said old Father Gray, "it's evident that Nature 

 made the nuts for us ; but one of these great human 

 creatures will carry off and gormandize upon what would 

 keep a hundred poor families of squirrels in comfort." Old 

 Ground-mole said it did not require very sharp eyes to see 

 into the future, and it would just end in bringing down 



