Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Natural history -- Juvenile fiction
In the meadow, although they have their quarrels and their own troubles,
they always make it up again and are friendly, but in the forest there
are some people who can never get along well together, and who do not go
to the same parties or call upon each other. It is not because they are
cross, or selfish, or bad. It is just because of the way in which they
have to live and hunt, and they cannot help it any more than you could
help having eyes of a certain color.
These are things which are all understood in the forest, and the people
there are careful what they say and do, so they get on very well indeed,
and have many happy times in that quiet, dusky place. When people are
born there, they learn these things without thinking about it, but when
they come there from some other place it is very hard, for everybody
thinks it stupid in strangers to ask about such simple matters.
When Mr. Red Squirrel first came to the forest, he knew nothing of the
way in which they do, and he afterward said that learning forest manners
was even harder than running away from his old home. You see, Mr. Red
Squirrel was born in the forest, but was carried away from there when he
was only a baby. From that time until he was grown, he had never set
claw upon a tree, and all he could see of the world he had seen by
peeping through the bars of a cage. His cousins in the forest learned to
frisk along the fence-tops and to jump from one swaying branch to
another, but when this poor little fellow longed for a scamper he could
only run around and around in a wire wheel that hummed as it turned, and
this made him very dizzy.
He used to wonder if there were nothing better in life, for he had been
taken from his woodland home when he was too young to remember about it.
One day he saw another Squirrel outside, a dainty little one who looked
as though she had never a sad thought. That made him care more than ever
to be free, and when he curled down in his cotton nest that night he
dreamed about her, and that they were eating acorns together in a tall
oak tree.
The next day Mr. Red Squirrel pretended to be sick. He would not run in
the wheel or taste the food in his cage. When his master came to look at
him, he moaned pitifully and would not move one leg. His master thought
that the leg was broken, and took limp little Mr. Red Squirrel in his
hand to the window to see what was the matter. The window was up, and
when he saw his chance, Mr. Red Squirrel leaped into the open air and
was away to the forest. His poor legs were weak from living in such a
small cage, but how he ran! His heart thumped wildly under the soft fur
of his chest, and his breath came in quick gasps, and still he ran,
leaping, scrambling, and sometimes falling, but always nearer the great
green trees of his birthplace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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