Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson

“ Little soldier, every log is a breastwork, every stump a sentry box, every screen of undergrowth a retreat. And for all he burrows, he is not a true ground squirrel. He can climb, and his habits are those of the tree squirrels. ”

“ If the sun is shining, and he sees his shadow, he knows there will be six weeks more of winter, so he goes to sleep again. With his clumsy body, flat head, beady eyes, and small ears and tail, he doesn't look in the least like a squirrel. But he sits upright to eat, and to look about. He never goes far from his hole, for he cannot run well. When alarmed, he jumps to shelter like a rabbit. ”

“ When he is moving—eating, or strolling along the sandy shore, as the walrus and the carpenter did—thesescoops, being a part of his legs, scoop up water out of the sand and to give him more fresh air just when he needs it most. You know you breathe harder when you are walking or running than when you are sitting still. Nature has that way of making one part serve another. When the crawfish learns the lesson from his leg scoops, that it is best to serve one another and not fight one another, he is much happier. ”

“ A farm is a strange, delightful land to a city boy. How many wonders he sees, and how eager you are to explain them to him. Then you go to the city to visit, and you see enough new things to talk about for weeks. It is a good thing to go away from home, and to have visitors. Moving about and mixing with people brightens us all wonderfully, and makes us change some of our ways of thinking and living. ”

“ All silver-gray, brownish-gray or even black, he is, for squirrels of the same family vary in color, just as foxes do. A little ten-inch furry bundle of fun, with a ten-inch banner of a tail! He plays tag, leap-frog, runs races on walls, rolls up and coasts down hill. He is just as curious about you as you are about him. He is very gossipy, chattering all day, but heattends to business, too. If he is hungry, he will sit up and show you how to crack and eat a nut. ”

“ Every plant could make its own seeds, and wouldn't need any neighbors or relations to help it. But sometimes flowers have the eggs but no pollen. You can find a great many strawberry blossoms with the little button-topped column, but no yellow food for the eggs at the bottom of the tunnel. These imperfect flowers must always be planted among perfect flowered kinds of strawberries.
And sometimes, even when flowers have both of the seed making materials, they, cannot unite them. The egg wants pollen from some other plant. ”

“ Look all around for the tiny, bird-like tracks of field mice. Most field mice make beds in the ground and sleep all winter, but others stay awake. They are the bed-makers of our wild life. They can make a warm bed of anything —leaves, grass, corn-silks, feathers. Up in the woods you can find the tiny trails of the fawn and white deer-mice, and find their feather-lined nests in rotten stumps. You will know them by their big ears and bright black pop-eyes. ”

“ You can scarcely go skating on a frozen pond in the winter without finding a dome-shaped, mud and grass house, or a littlevillage of a dozen homes frozen in the ice and covered with snow. Mr. Sharp, a nature writer, says that you can skate all around them and sit on one to strap your skates, without bothering the furry bunch of sleepers inside. ”

“ In your hand he lies helpless, a flat ball of fine, velvety, mouse-colored fur, six inches long. He has no neck or ears, dim pin-points of eyes, and a naked, pink tail that looks like a short, fat earthworm. Put the sprawly, wriggly creature on the ground. He scrambles about frantically until he finds a soft spot. Then he begins to bore with his bony gimlet of a nose. With his spade-like fore feet he digs and pries the earth back. In less than one minute the animal has disappeared. Do not kill moles. They are insect eaters. Mice, ground squirrels and rabbits are root eaters. ”

“ A pollen grain must fall on the hollow tip of each silk, and slide a hair root down the long tube to the egg, or there would be no kernels, or seeds, on the ear of corn.
The wind is the only messenger of the pines and palms, the grasses and grains, and many of the straight-veined plants. The lilies and other bulb plants of the straight-veined family, have bee and insect visitors. Nearly all of the net-veined plants have such sweet blossoms and fruits that bees and butterflies visit them. ”

“ It is so loosely fastened, in some flowers, that you can blow it off. That yellow dust is pollen. Pollen is one of the things the plant needs to make seed. The other thing is an egg.
Do you remember the little balls and whip lashes in liver-worts, and the way in which the whip thrashed about in its bath cup and jumped to the ball? By the time plants grew into pines and palms and grasses, the whip lash turned to pollen grains, but the little ball remained much the same. It became an egg, packed away with others in a seed-case.
The egg always lies quietly in its case. ”

“ Sometimes he uses a hole for a den, but often a crow's nest hammock, roofed over with leaves and bark. He cares neither for cold nor wind. His nest blown down by a gale, he catches on a limb like an acrobat, or drops on his feet like a cat. ”

“ Then you have animal neighbors as wild and shy as any you will see when the menagerie comes to town. Take a long tramp over the country after a light snowfall. Don't take a dog with you. Take an opera glass, a microscope and a camera. Walk in the face of the wind, or all the little wild creatures will get early news of you and vanish. ”

“ He cannot be tamed, and he bites with his chisel teeth. The prairie dog is found only on the wide plains of the West. To try to dig a village of these amusing little yappers out is like starting to dig a well. ”

“ No country in the Old World has so many true ground squirrels as we have. Prairie dogs, gophers and woodchucks are ground squirrels. The gopher is the ill-tempered, rat-like hermit of the garden. You may be sure he is under a flower or vegetable bed, biting off roots, if plant tops suddenly wither. ”

“ There are very few places in America where some of these rodents—little gnawing animals—are not to be found. But city children often know the common gray squirrel and the little brown chipmunk, better than country children do. ”

“ A timid, helpless creature, her only safety is in her legs. She cannot climb a tree, dig a den, or bite. She cannot crack nuts nor store food. She can run fast but not far. Her home is wherever she sleeps, out in the open, ears erect, eyes half-closed, nose wide and quivering. ”

“ When fruits and seeds are ripe the winds blow them abroad, the birds eat them, fly far away, north and south, sometimes hundreds of miles, and plant the seeds in other countries. In this way plants were scattered long before men began to grow them for food. The soil and rain and sunshine were not always the same, so plants had to change. Many varieties of palms and pines, grasses and wild fruits were made. The plants that traveled and had the greatest number of visitors, changed the most. ”

“ Cut a ripe apple across the middle and see what a nice seed case it has. The egg has to stay where it is formed, and wait for the pollen to come to it. In the apple blossom there is a circle of pink petals. Those petals are not the flower at all. They are only the party dress the flower puts on for company. ”

“ In the park zoo the prairie dog village is in a deep cement-lined pit filled with earth, so these clever little animals cannot tunnel and spread over the park.You can dig the woodchuck, or ground-hog, out. ”

“ Crawfish carries his lungs around outside of him, as you carry your school books, swung ovef your shoulder. He's got a nice place to keep his lungs where he will not strike them with his great awkward arms and legs. ”

“ It is just the same with plants. Plants that live by themselves, and do everything for themselves, are like hermits in caves. The liver-worts, mosses and ferns are sort of hermit plants. Palms and pines and grasses travel a little. Their pollen grains take journeys on the wind, and visit other plants. ”

“ And in "Kangaroo and Tossum, Too," you can read about the opossum who has a fur pocket on her stomach to carry her babies in. These animals are found only in the South, as the prairie dog is found in the West. Every part of our country has some special small, wild animal—mink, weasel, badger, fox, skunk—whose haunts and habits are interesting. There is just one more that is found all over the United States, wherever there are creeks, ponds and swamps. ”

“ He must not only be up in time to eat his breakfast, but he must get it himself. "Help" is very scarce in Crawfish land. Everybody helps himself to everything he can lay his claws on, whether others have been helped or not. "Finders are keepers," says Mr. Crawfish.
In looking over Mr. Crawfish's seven-jointed legs, we found that some of these legs had shrivelled up into little hairs, fringing his tail and other parts of his body. These hairs are really fingers to him— like those big, long feelers in front; for he feels things with them. ”

“ IX. Plants Have Visitors and Travel Abroad What a great thing it is for little boys and girls to have play mates. How many more things you learn to know and to do, and how much better a time you have, if you play with others. It is best of all to have some one who has lived in a very different place, and in a very different way from yourself, to play with. ”

“ It is lively work to dig out a mole, for he may be at either end, or anywhere along the route, or in a side chamber. If frightened by the noise you make, he will go deeper and bore a yard in ten minutes. ”

“ In the winter you can dig him out and roll him on the snow, like a flabby muff of coarse, gray-brbw^n hair. He is so fast asleep that if you take him into a warm house he will open his eyes, yawn, crawl under a bed or bureau, and go to sleep again. ”

“ You couldn't wet his sleek, brown fur coat any more than you could wet a duck's feathers. He only sleeps in the daytime, in winter. Each stout dome has a single room. It is a sort of club house, or European hotel, where a number sleep in one bed, snuggled up to keep each other warm. At night they all tumble out into the icy water and hunt for food. ”

“ He is the fat, sleepy-head bear squirrel. Don't look for him in the woods. Keep your eyes open when crossing a hill-side clover field, or in going down a steep creek bank. If you see a hole big enough to thrust your arm in, probe it with a stick. ”

“ Certain mice tunnel around pits of potatoes, beets and cabbage. They store clover and other roots in earth pockets. In countless hidden places out of doors these busy little gnawers have nests of babies no bigger than thimbles. ”

“ She is lucky if she gets forty winks at a time. If no dogs are about, she may creep under a barn, or in a wood pile, in cold weather. She distrusts a hole, because fences, owls and other enemies live in holes. ”