After several days of cold wintry weather, the sun burst through the clouds again, calling into life plants, and insects, and squirrels. Brush and his wife, and their three children, who were born the preceding summer, and had lived with their parents through the winter, were all awake and enjoying themselves again. How they frolicked and chased each other about from tree to tree, and played at hide-and-seek among the branches! You would have thought that they had laid wagers with each other, who should venture upon the most difficult and dangerous leaps.

Then what feasting there was upon buds and young bark! and though this fresh green food was very nice as a change, still they all seemed to agree with our friend Brush, that nuts and acorns were not to be despised neither.

Once or twice the gamekeeper gave the young squirrels a terrible fright by shouting to them, when they were making free with the tender bark of his master’s trees; but their parents told them, as they had often done before, that there was nothing to fear from Harvey, nor from his frightful looking gun. I hope you have not forgotten who it was that had saved the lives of so many squirrels. But if Harvey’s frolicsome young spaniels, Flora and Juno, had met with one of our friends at a distance from any tree, I am afraid it would have been a bad business, for squirrels cannot run very fast on the ground, and their bushy tails seem rather in the way there. And the cunning little animals appear to know this, for though they sometimes come down to the ground, you will very seldom see them at any great distance from a tree.

A few days after the squirrels roused themselves from their long winter sleep, their cousins, the dormice, in the thicket at the foot of the tree, opened their sleepy eyes at last, and came out of their nests. But when they were once thoroughly awake, their eyes did not look sleepy at all, but on the contrary, were most beautifully bright and dark, and rather large for the size of the animal.

I call the dormouse a relation to the squirrel, because in some respects, he is really very like him, though at first sight you would not think so, and would perhaps say, that he was very little different from a common mouse, except in being rather fatter, and of a prettier colour. But his tail, though not nearly so large and bushy, is something like the squirrel’s, and not at all like that of the mouse, which is almost entirely bare of hair, and in my opinion, has a very ugly and disagreeable appearance. The tail of the dormouse is handsome, and useful also, for when he sleeps he curls it over his head and back, to keep him warm and comfortable. Then in his habits he resembles the squirrel, for like him he can climb trees well, though he cannot leap very far, and he likes to dwell in the shade and retirement of the pleasant woods, far from the habitations of man. Here he generally makes his nest, which is composed of moss and leaves, in the thickest parts of bushes or underwood, and he lays up a winter store, like the squirrel.

Dormice are such sociable little creatures, that several families are sometimes found living close together, like those that had chosen their habitations at the foot of our squirrel’s great oak-tree. Perhaps before I have finished this tale I may have something more to tell you about little Gotobed, the dormouse.

Do you suppose that Brush and his family spent the whole of the summer in frolicking and feasting? No, indeed! for even squirrels have work to do, and duties to perform. So, after a few days spent in the merry way I have described, one afternoon, when their children were gone on an excursion to the larch-grove, Mr. and Mrs. Brush perched themselves up on the topmost branch of their own oak-tree, and had some very serious conversation together. At least, they meant that the conversation should be serious; but Brush was such a merry waggish fellow, that he seldom could talk very long upon any subject without a laugh or a joke.

“Well, my dear,” he began very gravely, “this is the third family you and I have seen playing around us. For three years we have lived happily together in this old oak, and a finer tree or a more comfortable nest than ours I do not believe can be found in the whole world.”

Here in the gaiety of his heart he darted off to a neighbouring bough, and after performing a few strange antics for his companion’s amusement, he was again perched up by her side, and went on with his speech.

“Three years,” continued he, “yes, I declare, it is three years since I persuaded you to have nothing more to say to that tiresome old fellow Bigtail, and to take me for a companion instead.”

“Come, come, you rogue,” said his wife, “if this is the serious conversation you wanted to have with me, you may as well hold your tongue.”

“Ha! ha!” he proceeded without attending to the interruption, “ha! ha! I remember that conceited old fellow Bigtail, and how you preferred him to me, because his tail was the least bit in the world longer than mine. I made him ashamed of his fine tail though at last. Oh, what fun! I shall never forget it! He was stuck up by your side, talking the most ridiculous stuff, I dare say, when I leaped down suddenly upon him from the branch above. I never did anything better in my life! Over he went like a dead thing. The old fellow was too much frightened, and too stiff in his joints, to catch hold of the boughs below, so down he tumbled to the ground. I declare I thought he was killed! But no, he only broke ha! ha! ha! I am ready to die when I think of it he only broke his tail! Ha! ha! he never could hold it up over his back afterwards, so there it was always dragging behind him, like a bundle of dead grass. What a ridiculous old fellow! After that tumble, he always went by the name Brokentail, instead of Bigtail; and from that time you never could abide him, you know.”

“Really, Mr. Brush,” said his partner, “if you make such a fool of yourself, I wont speak another word to you all day. What has all this nonsense to do with the serious conversation you wished to have with me about the children?”

“Oh yes, it was about the children I wanted to talk to you,” replied Brush, “and not about old Broken. Well, well, I wont say anything more about him, then, so come and sit down quietly again, and I’ll be very serious indeed! There! now we are all right once more. Well, my dear, now then about these children of ours. I believe you know what I am going to say we must part from them, Mrs. Brush! It is high time for you and me to see about putting the nest in order for another family, and these three children of ours must go and see the world, and find companions for themselves, for the rest of their lives. I only hope that when the boys are seeking for companions they will not break their tails like old  ; I mean, I hope they will both meet with as good a partner as their mother has been to me.”

The two old squirrels had a great deal more talk upon this subject, but as conversation about family affairs is often rather tiresome, I shall not repeat all they said about the matter. Though they both regretted parting from their children, they were convinced that a separation was necessary, and they agreed that the sooner it took place the better.

Perhaps you may think they were rather unamiable and hard-hearted, in treating their children in this manner; but you must remember that, though these were not yet a year old, they were very nearly, if not quite, as large as their parents, and were well able to take care of themselves.

When the young squirrels were informed of this determination, they were very sorry at first; but the thoughts of being their own masters, and of having comfortable nests of their own, reconciled them to the separation. I never heard what good advice their parents gave them at parting, but I have not the least doubt that Brush cautioned them to beware of the sad fate of old Brokentail.

So the three children, leaving their native tree, set off by themselves into the wide world, and I have nothing more to tell you about them. We must see what Brush and his companion did during the rest of the summer, what adventures they met with, and what new acquaintances they found among the various animals that lived in the neighbourhood of their beautiful oak-tree.

Here I must give you a short description of the place where this tree grew, and where it had flourished for five or six hundred years at least.

It was in a small, but very beautiful valley, through which ran a brook of the clearest water imaginable. This little stream came down from the hills, and ran through the upper part of the valley, in a very furious manner, as if it were in a hurry to be gone, that it might join the dark deep river, and reach the wide ocean at last. But just at the spot where our oak raised its head very far above all the trees around it, the impatient stream gradually changed its manner of proceeding, and began to run more slowly, as if desirous of remaining a little longer in such a delightful spot. So, after quietly winding backwards and forwards for some time, it spread itself out at last into the form of a most beautiful little pond, through which the current was so slow that it was hardly perceptible.

The gentleman to whom this valley, and the country around it, belonged, had spent many hundreds of pounds, and had employed the most skilful people he could find, in making his gardens and pleasure-grounds as gay and beautiful as possible. And yet, if you had walked all over his property, you would have said that no part of it was half so lovely as this little retired valley, where the art of man had never done anything to add to its exceeding beauty. The gardener’s spade and pruning-knife had never been used here. Everything you saw was fresh and unaltered from the hand of God himself.

I think the most beautiful part was the pond, and the open space just around it; for here the finest wild-flowers grew in abundance, and the noble oak-tree was so near, that, when the winds of autumn came down the valley, the trout, that delighted to swim in those pure waters, were sometimes startled by a shower of acorns, falling down from the outermost branches, and making a terrible splash over their heads.

I have not time to describe more than a very few of the plants which were to be found in the pond and on its banks. There was the water-lily, with its large green leaves laying flat upon the water, and its splendid white flowers, just raising their heads above the surface; the flowering-rush, which bears a bunch of beautiful pink blossoms on a high tapering stem; and the buckbean, which, though at a distance it does not look so grand as the other two, has such an exquisitely beautiful fringe on its pinky-white flowers, that the most skilful painter has never yet been able to produce even a tolerable imitation of it.

Many other lovely plants there were growing round the pond, and in other parts of this delightful little valley: plants which exceeded in beauty many of those we cultivate with so much care in our gardens and hot-houses. But when I began this little history I meant to write about “Squirrels and other Animals,” and not to give a description of plants. We must therefore return to our friends in the oak-tree.