The Road to Dumbiedykes 



ous years that little Mistress Mousie 

 sometimes builded nests for herself 

 and family in upholstered furnishings 

 or other places that promised to be 

 " comfy, " from a mouse 's point of view, 

 and so we unrolled the rug that was 

 to reveal a tragedy. Stark and stiff 

 in death inside this roll we found the 

 poor emaciated little body of one of 

 the flying squirrels — starved and 

 frozen in a desperate attempt at self- 

 preservation in the face of impossible 

 conditions; and a half-hour later on 

 the lawn, outside, underneath the very 

 tree that had been so courageously 

 defended in October, we found that 

 the melting snows had uncovered the 

 body of the mate! 



How the final separation had oc- 

 curred, how one had found its way in 

 its dire extremity inside the house and 

 far into the folds of the rug, are ques- 

 tions not to be answered this side of 

 flying-squirrel paradise — if there be 

 such a place. 



[no] 



