ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 109 



MARY AND HER PET SQUIRREL. 



DO you think my pet squirrel will go quite away, 

 If I let him be free just for one short day ? 

 So bland is the sun, and so genial the air, 

 It is cruel in me to imprison him there. 



' If I let him go once to the old chestnut-tree, 

 Don't you think, by to-night, he'll come back to me ? " 

 So said little Mary, as I chanced to go by, 

 And the inquiry glanced from her lip and her eye. 



It did seem quite hard, such a beautiful day, 

 To keep the pet squirrel in a cage-house to play ; 

 So I told her the squirrel would come back again, 

 When the shadows of evening fell over the glen; 

 He would tire of the oak and the murmuring rill, 

 And think his snug prison-house pleasanter still. 



So she lifted the latch of the prison-house door, 

 When a doubt flitted over her features once more. 

 ' I don't know," Mary said, " I feel half afraid, 

 He remembers too keenly the forest-tree's shade ; 

 On the gray mountain's brow, when the night-shadows fall,. 

 Perhaps he won't come at my evening call." 



'No matter, I'll try, and I hope he loves me 

 Far more than the nuts on the old chestnut-tree." 

 So she opened the door, and the squirrel popped out, 

 And whisked his long tail as he capered about. 



He bobbed his pert head, and looked out of his eye 

 With a mischievous wink, which said plainly, "Good-by; " 

 And his swift, little feet, as they pattering ran, 

 Sent back a defiance. " Now catch if you can ! " 



Now dear little Mary looked ruefully on, 

 When she saw that the squirrel had really gone. 

 Till her bright eye was weary with tracing his track, 

 And she said to herself, "I hope he'll come back." 



Well, she hoped, and she watched, and the evening came,. 

 And she listened to hear him respond to his name ; 

 With her locks all flung back, and her animate eye 

 Rambling o'er the brown hillocks, her squirrel to spy; 

 But he came not with night, and night came so fast, 

 That her hope all forsaken, she resigned it, at last. 



