18 AN ORPHANAGE IN A CHESTNUT. 



yard, as the first step towards help, one of the rash pair darted from the 

 Doctor's gentle grasp, and scrambled up a tree to the first crotch, where it 

 lay hugging the limb. 



With the other we walked towards the house. It uttered frequently 

 a piteous little cry, and this attracted in an instant the attention of a 

 mother squirrel, who, with her half-grown family, occupied a box in the 

 oak. She rushed out in a flurry of excitement, and hastened down to the 

 bridge, where, as the Doctor came underneath, she seemed almost ready 

 to jump down upon his shoulders, so great was her distress at the wailing 

 of the frightened youngster he carried. 



Thinking he could do no better, he placed the little one on the ground, 

 and we retired to watch what might follow. As soon as the old squir- 

 rel saw him do this (the whole agile tribe have become very tame towards 

 us) she ran swiftly down the chestnut-trunk to the ground, and thence 

 to the side of the lost infant, which she could not find in the tall grass 

 without standing on her hind-legs two or three times, and gazing care- 

 fully around. 



No sooner was the orphan discovered than the motherly heart of the 

 old one decided to take it at once to her own home. Putting her arms 

 about it in the most touching way, she spent a few seconds by its side, and 

 then trotted off, bidding the stranger follow. But the grass was tall, and 

 the little one was timid. Again and again it would lose the way or give 

 up, requiring the older one to go back and call to and encourage it. 

 Finally, the base of the chestnut was reached, and the ascent of its broad 

 trunk and great out-stretching branch was an easy task. 



Here, however, an immense difficulty awaited the anxious mother, and 

 a seemingly impossible task confronted the timid foundling. Out beyond 

 the broad avenue of the chestnut-limb stretched the slender pathway of 

 the long bridge, with its steep slope at the other end, upward to where 

 the snug haven of "home" nestled invitingly in the lofty oak. To an 

 adult sciurus, leaping from spray to spray among the topmost twigs of 

 the tallest trees, this was the most pleasant and easy of runways; even to 

 Mother Squirrel's half educated bairns, one of which now sat almost invis- 

 ible upon the roof of its box watching the proceedings with curious black 

 eyes, this bridge had lost its terrors, for they had practised it by easy 

 stages under parental guidance ; but for the baby so rudely thrown upon 

 its own resources, that wavering cable offered too thin and dizzy a foot- 

 hold to be thought of for a moment as a means of transit, however allur- 

 ing might be the prospect at the other end. 



There was a pause. The old squirrel ran nimbly out a few feet and 



