Master Frisky/Chapter 17
Gray-brush was a squirrel, and the cleverest member of the Gray-brush family that I have ever seen. I found him one day during a walk down in the pasture, under an oak. He had probably had a bad fall and hurt his back, something that rarely happens to a squirrel, for he was vainly trying to climb the trunk of the oak. He was using only his forepaws, while his hind legs were limp and useless under him, and his brush, that a squirrel usually carries saucily cocked over one shoulder, lay limp upon the ground.
I picked him up carefully; but he squirmed and bit at me savagely, and showed all of that distrust that the wild creature usually has for man. But when he found that I did not intend to hurt him, he became quiet, and I carried him home in my hat. I found an old squirrel-cage in the garret, and put Gray-brush in it, after which I bathed his back in arnica, and gave him corn and buckwheat. But he ate little for the first day or two, and would not eat at all when I was watching him. After a while, when I would happen around, I would find that he had been nibbling at his breakfast, or that he had hidden it somewhere in his cage.
Master Frisky did not know what to make of Gray-brush. I do not think that he had ever seen a squirrel before; anyway, he had not seen one so near. It was not a kitten, for the tail was too large and bushy; it was not a pup, of course, because he would know a pup at once; and what it was he didn't know.
Gray-brush grew better very fast under my care, and in a couple of weeks he was entirely well. Then he would sit perfectly erect upon his hind legs, with his tail gracefully balanced over one shoulder, and hold a nut between his forepaws and eat it. Around and around the nut would turn, while his sharp teeth dropped shavings from the shuck into the bottom of the cage. And when he had gnawed through to the fine meat, he would eat it with great relish, and then throw the shuck away.
When he had finished his breakfast, he would take his morning run on the wheel. It was not much like scurrying through the tree-tops, and the poor little fellow thought with regret of the sweet woods with the great trees to run upon. But, like the rest of the squirrel family, he believed in making the best of what he had; and so he would jump upon the wheel and make it spin around until all you could see was a dim and indistinct circle. When he got tired of scampering away so fast, and never getting anywhere, he would spring from the wheel, and stand on the bottom of his cage twitching his tail over his back and looking at us with his bright eyes. Sometimes when he got very lonely and longed for the woods, oh, so much! he would sing his forest song, keeping time with twitches of his tail and patting of his paws:
Chitter, chitter, chee, wild and free,
Chitter, chitter, chee, follow me."
Master Frisky looked very much astonished the first time he heard this song; but he soon learned to expect it, and even listen for Gray-brush's cheery song of the woods.
When he was tired of this chatter that his mother had taught him so long ago, he would sit up and look straight at us and bark. His bark sounded quite like that of a little dog, only it was not so loud. And so with eating nuts and running his wheel, barking and chattering, and singing his forest song, Gray-brush passed away the time as best he could. But he thought very often of his brothers and sisters, of his old father and mother, and of his many cousins, all of whom thought him dead except his mother, who still said that he would some day come back to them.
"Oh, dear!" sighed poor Gray-brush, springing from his wheel to the bottom of his cage, one summer morning, "I do hate this old cage, it is so hot and stuffy and small. Oh, I wish I was free, and out in the woods!"
"What! would you rather be in the woods than in that fine cage?" asked Frisky, who was lying on the grass near by.
"Would I?" said Gray-brush scornfully; "I would as soon die as to stay in this cage all summer."
Frisky looked very much surprised. He had never imagined but what Gray-brush was contented and happy, he was so cheerful and good-natured.
"Why," he said, "here you get a fine breakfast every morning, and in the woods you cannot always find nuts. Besides, here you are safe, and in the woods there are all sorts of dangers."
"I know it," said Gray-brush; "but it is not something to eat that I care for; the woods are my home, there I can run and be wild and free; but here I can only mope, and break my heart at last, for no one of my people was ever kept in a cage but he died of homesickness at the end."
"That is very queer," said Frisky; "I should think that you would like to have a kind master like ours, one who would feed you and keep your cage clean and nice."
"You would!" said Gray-brush contemptuously. "How would you like to be shut up in a box like this, and never go outside, while all of the other dogs were running about having a fine time?"
"I would not like it at all," said Frisky; "and if they did that to me I would gnaw off the slats and run away."
"That is what I would do if I could," said Gray-brush; "but you see these bars are so hard that I cannot gnaw them without breaking my teeth, and all the inside of my cage is just the same."
"Why did you let my master get you?" asked Frisky.
"I was hurt," said Gray-brush. "I fell from a tall tree when I was running very fast to get some medicine for my poor father. He was awful sick, and I am afraid that he is dead by this time. I was going to get him some bark from the spotted osier for his rheumatism."
"Have you a mother, too?" asked Frisky with interest.
"Oh, yes," said Gray-brush, "and brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts and cousins, and I would like to see them all so much."
Poor Gray-brush wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with his tail, and then sat up very straight, that Frisky might not see what he had done.
"I wish you could see them all," said Frisky, sympathetically; "but I would hate to have you leave us, you are so cunning, and I like you very much."
"I think your master would let me go if he knew how much I longed for the woods, don't you?" asked Gray-brush.
"I don't know," said Frisky, rather doubtfully. "He is good to every one, and perhaps he might; but you see he does not know, because we animals can't talk to folks as we can to each other."
"That is just the trouble," said Gray-brush pathetically; "and so I will have to stay here and die, like all the rest of the captive squirrels, just because people don't understand."
Frisky looked troubled, but said, "I would help you, Gray-brush, if I could."
"Would you?" asked the squirrel eagerly.
"Of course I would," said Frisky.
"Then just turn that button on the cage door with your paw."
"I am afraid master would not like to have me do that," said Frisky. "I guess it would be wicked."
"You say that he would let me go if he knew how much I wanted to," said Gray-brush; "and besides you said that you would help me if you could."
Frisky looked doubtfully, first at my study windows, and then at the cage door.
"Please do,' said Gray-brush again. "I do want to go so much." The little fellow was crowding at the cage door, and panting with eagerness, his eyes big with excitement and longing. "Oh, do, Frisky," he sobbed, "and I will love you all my life."
Frisky reached up with his forepaw and turned the button. Gray-brush pushed against the door and it swung open, and with a whisk of his tail and a patter of small feet, he was gone along the stone wall that led to the woods. But directly, from a distant orchard, came back the cheerful song of the squirrel family:
Chitter, chitter, chee, wild and free,
Chitter, chitter, chee, come with me."
And the song was so full of joy and gladness, that Frisky was glad that he had turned the button, although he half expected a licking for it.
That evening, when I went to feed Gray-brush, I found his cage door wide open, and the little fellow gone.
"Where is Gray-brush?" I asked of Frisky, who was looking mournfully into the cage. And he looked so guilty that I was sure he had let him out, but he fell to licking my feet so affectionately that I forgave him.
"It's no matter," I said; "his home is in the woods, and there he should be."