A BARN-DOOR OUTLOOK 



Let me return to the red squirrel, because he re- 

 turns to me hourly. He is the most frisky, diverting, 

 and altogether impish of all our wild creatures. He 

 is a veritable Puck. All the other wild folk that cross 

 my field of vision, or look in upon me here in my 

 fragrant hay-barn study, seem to have but one feel- 

 ing about me: "What is it? Is it dangerous? Has it 

 any designs upon me?" But my appearance seems 

 to awaken other feelings in the red squirrel. He 

 pauses on the fence or on the rail before me, and goes 

 through a series of antics and poses and hilarious 

 gestures, giving out the while a stream of snickering, 

 staccato sounds that suggest unmistakably that I 

 am a source of mirth and ridicule to him. His ges- 

 tures and attitudes are all those of mingled mirth, 

 curiosity, defiance, and contempt — seldom those of 

 fear. He comes spinning along on the stone wall in 

 front of me, with those abrupt, nervous pauses every 

 few yards that characterize all his movements. On 

 seeing me he checks his speed, and with depressed 

 tail impels himself along, a few inches at a time, in a 

 series of spasmodic starts and sallies; the hind part of 

 his body flattened, and his legs spread, his head erect 

 and alert, his tail full of kinks and quirks. How 

 that tail undulates! Now its end curls, now it is 

 flattened to the stone, now it springs straight up as 

 if part of a trap, hind feet the while keeping time 

 in a sort of nervous dance with the shrill, strident 

 cackling and snickering. The next moment he is 

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