went to assist in stripping bark from the trees. When he went home from
his work, toward evening, he felt curious to see how the mother squirrel
would behave when she returned and found her home was gone. He
accordingly hid himself in a bush to watch her proceedings. About dusk,
she came running along the stone wall with a nut in her mouth, and went
with all speed to the old familiar tree. Finding nothing but a stump
remaining there, she dropped the nut and looked around in evident
dismay. She went smelling all about the ground, then mounted the stump
to take a survey of the country. She raised herself on her hind legs and
snuffed the air, with an appearance of great perplexity and distress.
She ran round the stump several times, occasionally raising herself on
her hind legs, and peering about in every direction, to discover what
had become of her young family. At last, she jumped on the prostrate
trunk of the tree, and ran along till she came to the hole where her
babies were concealed. What the manner of their meeting was nobody can
tell; but doubtless the mother's heart beat violently when she
discovered her lost treasures all safe on the warm little bed of moss
she had so carefully prepared for them. After staying a few minutes to
give them their supper, she came out, and scampered off through the
bushes. In about fifteen minutes, she returned and took one of the young
ones in her mouth, and carried it quickly to a hole in another tree,
three or four hundred yards off, and then came back and took the others,
one by one, till she had conveyed them all to their new home. The
intelligent instinct manifested by this little quadruped excited great
interest in Isaac's observing mind. When he drove the cows to pasture,
he always went by that tree, to see how the young family were getting
along. In a short time, they were running all over the tree with their
careful mother, eating acorns under the shady boughs, entirely
unconscious of the perils through which they had passed in infancy.