After the departure of their children the squirrels felt, as you may suppose, rather dull and lonely at first, but they very wisely made use of a remedy for low spirits, which I would strongly recommend to you, whenever you find yourself melancholy or uncomfortable in your mind from any cause. And particularly when you are so, _without_ any apparent cause; for we sometimes see people very dismal and melancholy, when they have every good thing they can wish, and _ought_ to be cheerful and happy. This wonderful and never failing remedy for low spirits is _employment_! Try it, my dear melancholy young reader, and whether you have a good reason for your sadness or not, you will at least have met with something worth remembering in this history. Our squirrels, then, instead of sitting moping side by side on a bough, and grumbling out to each other, "What miserable creatures we are!" instead of thus giving way to their melancholy thoughts, they immediately began to make use of the _remedy_ I have mentioned. The first thing they did was carefully to examine the nest, to see what repairs it stood in need of. It would at any rate require a fresh lining of moss and leaves; so all the old bedding, which I must confess was rather dusty and untidy, was taken off, and kicked out of the hole, together with a quantity of nut-shells and other rubbish, which had been collecting there for some months. When this work was finished, it was found that the under part, or groundwork of the nest, which consisted of small twigs and fibres curiously interlaced, was very rotten, and required to be almost entirely renewed. So there was plenty of work to do, and very diligently the squirrels laboured to complete it. Not that they worked like slaves, from morning till night. Oh no! they allowed themselves abundance of time for feasting and fun, for they were such merry, light-hearted creatures, that they could not live without a good game of play now and then. They even mixed play with their work; for when they had to go to a little distance for some particularly fine soft moss, or other materials for nest-building, they were sure to have a race, to try which of them could reach the place first. So the days passed by right merrily.