THE FOOD OF SQUIRRELS. 53 



object fall, its joy of living forever quenched. 

 Even now at times I step over an ant, never on 

 it when I see it in time, and no snake, except 

 the poisonous one, doth fall a victim to my 

 hand. 



My squirrel is an old settler whose bones I 

 shall have to stew before his muscles I can 

 chew. Maple seeds were what he was seeking, 

 the kernels in the bases of the long samaras, 

 the tree-top being full of them. On many of 

 the more slender upper branches of this and 

 other near-by maples I note scars several inches 

 in length and often reaching entirely around 

 the branch. Some are old and yellow, others 

 white and fresh. They show where the squirrels 

 have eaten away the bark during the late 

 spring and early summer, when for them there 

 was little else on which to feed. This year 

 there is no mast of any kind, not even a beech- 

 nut in the old pasture, and the neighboring 

 cornfields of the farmer will doubtless suffer 

 much during the months to come. 



Once again, boulders gray, I greet you! 

 Once again I come to you with a feeling of 

 reverence in my soul^-reverence not for you 

 but for that part of my past which I have spent 

 by your side for those happy hours when first 

 we met, when hope was high, when ambition 

 towered, when love sang songs, when duty 

 called. Why should not a man revere his dead 



