Lydia Maria Child, Isaac T. Hopper: a true life

[19] needed their mother's milk. So after examining them, he put them back in the nest, and with his usual busy helpfulness 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,