Caleb in the Country, Jacob Abbott [guided reading books TXT] 📗

his beautiful grey colour, and his bushy tail, curled over his back, like a plume. But then she did not like to have him a prisoner. She knew that he must love a life of freedom,--rambling among the trees, climbing up to the topmost branches, and leaping from limb to limb; and it was painful to her to think of his being shut up in a cage. And yet she did not like to let him go, for then she knew that in all probability he would run off to the woods, and she would see him no more.

It happened that one limb of the great elm before the house was hollow for a considerable distance up from the trunk of the tree, and there was a hole leading into this hollow limb at the crotch, where the limb grew out from the tree. She thought that this would make a fine house for the squirrel, if he could only be induced to think so himself, and live there. It occurred to her that she might put him in, and fasten up the hole with wires for a time, like a cage; and she thought that if she kept him shut up there, and fed him there with plenty of nuts and corn, for a week or two, he would gradually forget his old home in the woods, and get wonted to his new one.

After thinking of several ways of fastening up the mouth of the hole, she concluded finally on the following plan. She got some small nails, and drove them in pretty near together on each side of the hole, and then she took a long piece of fine wire, and passed it across from one to the other, in such a manner as to cover the mouth of the hole with a sort of net-work of wire. She then got Raymond to put the squirrel in through a place which she left open for that purpose, and then she closed this place up like the rest, with wires. The squirrel ran up into the limb, and disappeared.

When the boys came and saw the ingenious cage which Mary Anna had contrived, they thought it was an excellent plan; and they asked her if she was not afraid that when she opened the cage door, he would run off into the woods again. She said she was very much afraid that he would, but that still there was a possibility that he might stay; and if he should, she should often see him from her window, running about the tree, and she should take so much more pleasure in that than in seeing him shut up in a cage, that she thought she should prefer to take the risk. She made the boys promise not to go to the hole, for fear they might frighten him, and she said she meant to feed him herself every day, with nuts and corn, and try to get him tame before she took away the wires.

The children felt a good deal of curiosity to see whether the squirrel would stay in the tree or run away, when Mary Anna should open his cage door; and after a few days, they were eager to have her try the experiment. But she said, no. She wished to let him have full time to become well accustomed to his new home.

Mary Anna generally went early in the morning to feed the squirrel,--before the boys were up. Then she fed him again after they had gone to school, and also just before they came home at night. She knew that if she fed him when they were at home, they would want to go with her; and it would frighten the squirrel to see so many strange faces,--even if the boys should try to be as still as possible.

One morning, Mary Anna and the boys were down near the mole, and were talking about the squirrel. David and Dwight were sailing their boats, and Mary Anna was sitting with Caleb upon a bench which David had made for his mother, close to the shore. Caleb's junk was upon the ground by his side. Caleb asked Mary Anna when she was going to let her squirrel out.

"O, I don't know," said she, "perhaps in a week more."

"A week!" said Dwight, pushing his boat off from the shore, "I wouldn't wait so long as that."

"Why, when I first had him, you wanted to have me keep him in a cage all the time."

"I know it," said Dwight; "but now I want to see whether he will run away."

"I would not try yet," said David--"but you'd better have a name for him, Marianne."

"I have got a name for him," said she.

"What is it?" said Dwight, eagerly.

"Mungo."

"Mungo!" repeated Dwight; "I don't think that is a very good name. What made you think of that name?"

"O, I heard of a traveller once, named Mungo. The whole of his name was Mungo Park; but I thought Mungo was enough for my squirrel."

" He has not been much of a traveller," said Dwight.

"O, yes," replied Mary Anna, "I think it probable he has travelled about the woods a great deal."

"Did Mungo Park travel in the woods?"

"Yes, in Africa. I think Mungo knows his name too," said Mary Anna.

"Do you," said Dwight. "Why?"

"Why, whenever I go to feed him," said Mary Anna, "I call Mungo! Mungo! and drop my nuts and corn down through the wires into the hole. And now he begins to come down when he hears my voice, and the little rogue catches up a nut and runs off with it."

"Does he?" said Caleb. "O, I wish you would let him out. I don't believe he would run away."

"Not just yet," said Mary Anna.

"But if you don't let him out pretty soon, I shall be gone," said Caleb; "for I am going to Boston, you know, next week."

"So you are," said Mary Anna; "I forgot that."

Caleb's father and mother were coming up from Boston that week, and they had written something about taking Caleb back with them, when they returned. Caleb was much pleased with this idea. He liked living in the country better than living in Boston; but still, he was very much pleased at the thought of seeing his father and mother, and his little sister, at home. He also liked riding, and was very glad of the opportunity to ride several days in the carryall, upon the front seat with his father. He expected that his father would let him have the whip and reins pretty often to drive.

"It is not certain, however," continued Mary Anna, "that you will go to Boston this summer. Mother said that perhaps you would not go until the fall, and then perhaps she would go with you, and bring you back to stay here through the winter."

"But I don't want to stay here in the winter ," said Caleb.

"Why not?" said Mary Anna.

"O, it is so cold and snowy;--and we can't play any."

"That's a great mistake," said Dwight; "we have fine times in the winter."

"Why, what can you do?"

"O, a great many things; last winter we dug out a house in a great snow-drift under the rocks, and played in it a good deal."

"But it must be very cold in a snow-house," said Caleb.

"O, we had a fire."

"A fire?" said Caleb.

"Certainly," said Dwight, "We put some large stones for the fire-place, and let the smoke go out at the top."

"But then it would melt your house down."

"It did melt it a little around the sides, and so made it grow larger: but it did not melt it down. We had some good boards for seats, and we could stay there in the cold days."

"Yes," said Mary Anna, "I remember I went in one cold, windy day, and I found you boys all snugly stowed in your snow-house, warm and comfortable, by a good blazing fire."

"Once we made some candy in our snow-house," said David.

"Did you?" said Caleb.

"Yes," said David; "Mary Anna proposed the plan, and got mother to give us the molasses in a little kettle, and we put it upon three stones in our snow-house, and we boiled it all one Wednesday afternoon, and when it was done, we poured it out upon the snow. It was capital candy."

" I should like to see a snow-house," said Caleb, "very much."

"Then should not you like to stay here next winter? And then we can make one," said David.

"Perhaps I could make one in Boston," said Caleb.

"Ho!" said Dwight, with a tone of contempt, " you couldn't make a snow-house."

"But there are enough other boys in Boston to help me," said Caleb.

"There is not any good place," said Mary Anna, in a mild and pleasant tone. "There is only a very small yard, and that is full of wood piles."

"I can make it on the common," said Caleb. "The common is large enough I can tell you."

Here Dwight suddenly called out in a tone of great eagerness and delight, to look off to a little bush near them, to which he pointed with his finger.

"See! see! there is a squirrel!--a large grey squirrel!"

"Where?" said Caleb, "where? I don't see him."

"Hush!" said Mary Anna, in a low tone: "All keep perfectly still. I'll shew him to you, Caleb. There, creeping along the branch."

"I see him," said David. "Let us catch him, and put him in with Mungo."

"I'm afraid it is Mungo," said Mary Anna.

"Mungo!" said Dwight, with surprise.

"Yes," said Mary Anna, "it looks like him. I am afraid he has got out of some hole, and is going away. Sit still, and we will see what he will do."

"O, no," said Dwight, "I will go and catch him."

"No, by no means," said Mary Anna, holding Dwight back, "let us see what he will do."

It was Mungo. He had gnawed himself a hole, and escaped from his prison.

He did not, however, seem disposed to go away very fast. He came down from the bush, and crept along upon the ground towards the brook, and then finding that he could not get across very well, he ran about the grass a little while, and then went back by degrees to the tree. He climbed up to the great branch, playing a minute or two about the grating over the hole, and then ran along out to the end of the branch, the children watching him all the time, and walking slowly along up towards the tree.

"I'll go and get him some corn," said Mary Anna, "and see if he will not come down for it to his hole, when I call him. You stand here perfectly still, till I come back."

So she went in and got a nut instead of corn, and put it down by the hole, calling "Mungo!" "Mungo!" as usual. The squirrel came creeping down the branch, and Mary Anna left the nut upon the grating, and went away. He crept down cautiously, seized the nut, stuffed it into his cheek, and ran off to one of the topmost branches; and there standing upon his hind legs, and holding his nut in his forepaws, he began gnawing the shell,