SQUIRRELS AND SQUIRREL HUNTING. 20I 



was the largest and most beautiful wild gray squirrel 

 that I have ever seen. My elbows were resting on my 

 knees and my hands clasped between them, and by turn- 

 ing my left forearm around on its elbow I could have 

 stroked him. He seemed, and doubtless was, wholly 

 unconscious of my presence, thinking me an old, moss- 

 covered stump, perhaps, and, after a moment's pause, 

 leaped quietly to a little maple sapling a few feet away, 

 and then down among the leaves and off toward the 

 brook. I suppose he never knew how near he came 

 to making friends with a boy that day. On three other 

 times also have squirrels been within my reach. I 

 would have felt like a murderer if I had shot them 

 then, or at least had not given them a good chance for 

 their lives. 



The most provoking experience, however, that I 

 ever had was on a similar occasion, one fine, brisk morn- 

 ing when I had been out to a woods on a squirrel hunt 

 and had been lucky enough to get one big gray fellow. 

 I had him hanging from my suspenders, as all boys do, 

 by the thongs of his hind legs, piercing between the 

 ligaments and the bone with my knife, close to the 

 joint, and then inserting a slender but stout stick, or 

 twig, some few inches long and with a crotch at one 

 end, and supporting that stick at each end by the button 

 flaps of one side of my suspenders, letting the squirrel 

 hang and flop against me as I walked — prouder than 

 any king, and feeling as if I had sprouted fringes of 

 buckskin along the seams of my corduroys, and were 

 wearing beaded moccasins. It began to get far past 

 the sunrise and I turned toward home, giving up any 

 further luck for the day, and, seeing a large hawk in 



