THE RED SQUIRREL 



He exasperates when he cuts off your 

 half -grown apples and pears in sheer 

 wantonness, injuring you and profiting 

 himself only in the pleasure of seeing 

 and hearing them fall. But you are 

 heated with a hotter wrath when he re- 

 veals his chief wickedness, and you catch 

 sight of him stealthily skulking along 

 the leafy by-paths of the branches, si- 

 lently intent on evil deeds and plotting 

 the murder of callow innocents. Quite 

 noiseless now, himself, his whereabouts 

 are only indicated by the distressful out- 

 cry of the persecuted and sympathizing 

 birds and the fluttering swoops of their 

 futile attacks upon the marauder. Then 

 when you see him gliding away, swift 

 and silent as a shadow, bearing a half- 

 naked fledgeling in his jaws, if this is 

 the first revelation of such wickedness, 

 you are as painfully surprised as if you 

 had discovered a little child in some 

 wanton act of cruelty. 



It seems quite out of all fitness of na- 

 ture that this merry fellow should turn 

 murderer, that this dainty connoisseur 

 of choice nuts and tender buds, and 

 earliest discoverer and taster of the 

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