THE SQUIRRELS THAT LIVE IN A HOUSE. 6 1 



my heart warns me of the progress of decay, and probably 

 it will be seized upon by these rapacious creatures as an 

 excuse for laying me as low as my noble green brother." 



In spite of all this disquiet about it, the little cottage 

 grew and was finished. The walls were covered with 

 pretty paper, the floors carpeted with pretty carpets ; and, 

 in fact, when it was all arranged, and the garden walks 

 laid out, and beds of flowers planted around, it began to 

 be confessed, even among the most critical, that it was 

 not after all so bad a thing as was to have been feared. 



A black ant went in one day and made a tour of ex- 

 ploration up and down, over chairs and tables, up the 

 ceilings and down again, and, coming out, wrote an arti- 

 cle for the Crickets' Gazette, in which he described the 

 new abode as a veritable palace. Several butterflies flut- 

 tered in and sailed about and were wonderfully delighted, 

 and then a bumble-bee and two or three honey-bees, who 

 expressed themselves well pleased with the house, but more 

 especially enchanted with the garden. In fact, when it was 

 found that the proprietors were very fond of the rural soli- 

 tudes of Nature, and had come out there for the purpose 

 of enjoying them undisturbed, that they watched and 

 spared the anemones, and the violets, and bloodroots, and 

 dog's-tooth violets, and little woolly rolls of fern that began 

 to grow up under the trees in spring, that they never 

 allowed a gun to be fired to scare the birds, and watched 



