Life on a Wisconsin Farm 



together for warmth. Yet all had died without 

 a struggle, perhaps more from starvation than 

 frost. Many small birds lose their lives in the 

 storms of early spring, or even summer. One 

 mild spring morning I picked up more than a 

 score out of the grass and flowers, most of them 

 darling singers that had perished in a sudden 

 storm of sleety rain and hail. 



In a hollow at the foot of an oak tree that I 

 had chopped down one cold winter day, I 

 found a poor ground squirrel frozen solid in its 

 snug grassy nest, in the middle of a store of 

 nearly a peck of wheat it had carefully gathered. 

 I carried it home and gradually thawed and 

 warmed it in the kitchen, hoping it would come 

 to life like a pickerel I caught in our lake 

 through a hole in the ice, which, after being 

 frozen as hard as a bone and thawed at the fire- 

 side, squirmed itself out of the grasp of the 

 cook when she began to scrape it, bounced off 

 the table, and danced about on the floor, mak- { 

 ing wonderful springy jumps as if trying to 

 find its way back home to the lake. But for 

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