CHAPTER VI.

THE NEST.

ONE clear and cold morning in winter, as Bessie was passing along the road that led by Nelly's home, she heard Martin call her from the barn where he was at work. He saw her passing and beckoned to her to come to him. Bessie had the singular habit which most children possess of stopping to ask why she was summoned, when at the same time she fully intended to answer the call in person. So she stood still, and in a loud voice cried,

"Mar-TIN, what _is_ it? What do you want of me?"

"Come and see!" replied Martin, "I've something nice to show you!" and then he resumed his place at the hay-cutting machine, at which he had been busy when he espied her. He was mincing the hay for the cattle to eat.

Bessie still stood irresolute. She meant to come, but she desired her curiosity to be gratified before she did so.

"Mar-TIN?"

"Well?"

"Can't you tell me _now_ what it is?"

"No," replied Martin, going on with his hay chopping; "I guess you will have to come and see for yourself. It almost splits my throat to be calling out to you so."

"I think you might tell me," said Bessie, opening the gate and walking towards him; "you could have done it in half the time that you have been talking about it. Mercy! have you cut all that pile of hay this morning?"

"Yes," said Martin; "it's for the horses. I sprinkle a little water on it, and they like it a great deal better than when it is dry and uncut. It's healthier for them too."

"I am glad I don't live on it," said Bessie. "I should be like the horse that his master fed on shavings,--just as I got used to it I should die."

"Very likely," said Martin, laughing. "Come, and I'll show you what I spoke about." Bessie followed him as he led the way across the yard to the part of the barn where the large folding-doors were situated. They were wide open, and the clear winter sunshine streamed on the floor. An old wagon and a ladder were placed across this opening, so that no one could come in or go out without climbing over.

"What is this for?" asked Bessie. "This wagon don't belong here, Martin. I never saw it here before."

"That's to keep the cows out," said Martin, smiling. "We have treasures in this part of the barn that it would not do for the cattle to get at. Here Nanny, here Jinny!"

A pattering of little hoofs was heard on the wooden floor, and a couple of white sheep came running eagerly up to Martin's outstretched hand. They rubbed themselves against it, and showed in various other ways how glad they were to see him.

"Aren't they pretty?" said Bessie admiringly. "Come here, Nanny."

But Nanny would not touch Bessie's hand, and backed up the barn, shaking her head at the sight of it, and kicking her delicate little heels in the air.

"They don't know you yet," said Martin, "but they are very tame, and would soon become acquainted if you were with them every day as I am. We have had them two weeks, and already they let me play with them. They are cossets."

"_Cossets_, Martin?"

"Yes; that means the pets of the flock. The cosset lamb means the pet lamb."

"Pet is a prettier word than cosset," said Bessie; "I should never call them that. I do wish mother had two such nice sheep. But why do you keep them shut up here?"

"You haven't seen all yet," said Martin, smiling; "just creep through this place and round by these wheels, and we will go in and find out why the cows are kept out and the sheep kept in."

Martin helped Bessie through the obstructions, and led her to the back of the barn where, nestled in a heap of clean hay that was piled against the opposite folding doors, she saw a little bundle of something white, in which she could just detect two small, glittering eyes.

"It's a lamb," cried Bessie, skipping about as if she were one herself.

"Two of 'em," said Martin. "Only look here!" and he pulled apart the loose whisps of hay, and there lay revealed two of the fattest, whitest, and prettiest lambs that ever were seen. They did not seem to like being admired, but gave utterance to a little sharp cry very much like a baby's. Hearing it, one of the sheep trotted up, and pushing between them and Martin, quietly began to lick them.

"That's their mother," said Martin. "They are twins, and only two days old. The other old sheep is a twin of this old one, and they are so fond of each other that we cannot keep them separate. At first we were afraid the aunty would injure the young ones, and we shut her out in the barn-yard, but she came and stood at the door, there by the wagon, and cried so piteously that Mr. Brooks told me she might stay in with her sister and her baby nieces. We could not bear to hear her bleat so."

"Don't she bite or tread on them?" asked Bessie.

"No," said Martin, "I think she is very tender with them. This morning one of the men threw a handful of hay accidentally in a lamb's face, and when it tried to push it off but couldn't, what does old aunty do but walk up and eat it away, every whisp. I thought that was quite bright of her, and kind too. On the whole I think they are a happy family."

"Does Nelly like 'em?" asked Bessie, as she patted the head of the one Martin called the "aunty."

"Yes," said Martin, "she thinks they are the handsomest animals on the place. They grow fonder of her every day."

"I hope her father don't mean to have them killed," remarked Bessie, a little sadly.

"No indeed," cried Martin, "he bought them for pets, and to look pretty running about the meadow in the summer time. He says they are too tame and loving to be killed. I shouldn't like to think of such a thing, I am sure. There,--do see old Moolly poking her head over the wagon! How she does want to come in! She always was our pet before, and I suppose it makes her a little jealous. Poor Moolly,--good little Moolly."

Martin picked up a corn-cob and rubbed the cow's ears. She stood quite still to let him do it, and when he stopped she stretched out her head for more and looked at him as if she had not had half her share.

"Are the little lambs named?" asked Bessie, as she got up from the hay to go.

"No," said Martin; "Nelly's father told her she might call them any thing she wanted, but she thinks they are such funny little long-legged things that she cannot find names pretty enough. When they grow stronger they will frisk about and be full of play."

"I mean to run over to the house to see her and ask her about it," said Bessie. "I am real glad you called me, Martin, to look at them."

Martin went back to his hay-cutting, and Bessie bade him good-by, and skipped along the path to the house. Bessie always skipped instead of walking or running, when she was particularly pleased with any thing. On knocking at the farm-house door, she was told to her great sorrow that Nelly was not within, but when she heard that she had just started to pay a visit to herself, that sorrow was changed to joy, and she turned to go home with a very light heart and a pair of very brisk feet.

"Perhaps I can overtake her," she said to herself; but go as fast as she could, she saw nothing of Nelly on the road. When she reached home, she was so warm with the exercise that it seemed to her as though the day were a very mild one indeed. As she pushed open the door of the kitchen, her eyes were so bright and her cheeks so red from her little run, that her mother looked up from her work and asked what she had been doing.

"Only racing down the hill to find Nelly," panted Bessie, sinking into a chair as she spoke. "Isn't she here? I didn't overtake her."

"No," replied her mother, "Nelly has been here and gone. She was sorry you were out."

"Gone!" echoed Bessie. "Well, if that is not too bad! Mrs. Brooks said she had just started. I am so sorry. Did she tell you which way she was going?"

"No," said her mother, "she did not, but she said perhaps she would stop on her way back. Come, take off your hat and shawl and hang them up, and then begin hemming one of these towels. I am in a great hurry to get them done. They are Mrs. Raynor's, and I promised to send them home to-morrow."

Bessie loved to romp and play much better than to sew, and these words of her mother's did not consequently fill her with satisfaction. She knew, however, that by sewing their living was to be gained, so she choked down the fretful words that rose to her lips. She felt that it was hard enough for her mother to work, without having her repinings to endure also. The glow and cheerful effect of her walk, however, faded away as she slowly untied her hood, and hung it with her shawl on a peg behind the door. She was deeply disappointed at Nelly's absence.

"I wish she would have waited a little while," she said; "I don't see her so often now the winter has set in, that I can afford to miss her. Mother, have you seen my thimble?"

"What!" said her mother, "lost _again_, Bessie? What shall I do with this careless girl? There is my old one, you can use that for a little while."

"Oh, now I remember," cried Bessie, springing up, "I left it in the garret, in the drawer of the old table, the last time I was there. I'll get it, and be down again in a moment."

She opened the door at the foot of the stairs, and ran quickly up them. She did not notice that she left the door wide open, and that the cold air rushed into the warm kitchen, nor did she know that her mother, sighing, was obliged to rise from her work and shut it after her.

On went Bessie, and turning the landing, began the second flight, two steps at a time, as usual. She was very lightfooted, and owing to her disappointment about Nelly, she did not feel quite gay enough to hum the little tunes which she generally did when going about the house, so that altogether she scarcely made any noise. Perhaps it was owing to this that, as she reached the head of the garret stairs, she saw something run across the floor, evidently alarmed at her unexpected appearance. She stood still for a moment, hardly knowing what it was, and not wishing to go any further in the fear of frightening it away before she could get a good look at it. She decided at once, however, from its size, that it was not a rat, for it was far too large. It had taken refuge behind some old furniture in a corner, and in the hope that if she kept perfectly still, it would venture out again, she sat down on the top step, and fixed her eyes intently on the spot where she had beheld it disappear. She had remained thus but a short time when she heard hasty footsteps coming from the kitchen, and a voice that she recognized as that of Nelly, called her name. She did not answer, for she wanted to unravel the mystery, whatever it might be, and when Nelly, still calling, followed her up to the stairs on which she sat, she put her finger on her lip by way of enjoining silence, and beckoned to her to come to her. Nelly understood in a moment, and slipping off her heavy winter walking shoes, crept up and sat down beside her.

"Hush!" whispered Bessie, "don't make a sound. There is some sort of a little animal concealed behind that old fire-board, and I want to see it come out."

She spoke so low that Nelly had difficulty in getting at the sense of what she said, but when she did, she nodded slightly, and the two little girls began the watch together.

They sat there a long, long time.

Once or twice they thought they heard a movement behind the fire-board, but they saw nothing. At last, just as they were becoming very weary of remaining so long in the cold, Nelly caught sight of a small pointed nose, projecting from one side of the board. As this nose moved slowly forward, a pair of bright little eyes came into view also, rolling restlessly about, as if seeking to espy danger. It was with difficulty the children could repress the exclamations that were on their lips, but with an effort they did so, and remained just as quiet as before. Encouraged by the dead stillness, the animal advanced still further from its retreat, peering all the while about it. Its body, as near as they could see, was spotted gray and white, and so were its pretty ears, which were long, and in constant motion. It ran cautiously from its place of concealment, and at last, with a graceful, hurried spring, landed on the top of Bessie's table. Arrived there, it sat down and looked about it again. The children did not move. The drawer of the table, as usual, was partially open, according to Bessie's careless habit, and the little creature put its mites of paws carefully in the crack, bringing them out again almost immediately with a nut, at which at once it commenced to nibble. It was an odd sight as it sat there on its hind legs, holding the nut in its front paws, and twisting and turning it from side to side in order to find a good place to plant its sharp teeth. Nelly glanced at Bessie and longed to burst into a laugh, but Bessie signified to her by a movement of her eye-brows and lips that she must not. It was plain enough by this time that the little thief was a squirrel. Bessie was quite bewildered at the thought that it had been able to get in the house without her or her mother's knowledge. She did not know that the race to which the animal belonged is proverbial for its cunning, and that often it steals a way into the habitations of men for no other purpose than to find seeds and grains on which to live.

Some accidental movement which Bessie made, at length startled the squirrel from its sense of security. It leaped lightly from the table to the floor, and disappeared behind some loose blocks of wood, near the fire-board. As it did so, Nelly saw that part of its tail was missing, looking as if torn off at about half its length.

"Bessie!" she exclaimed eagerly, as her companion made a dart for the blocks of wood, "Bessie, as sure as you're alive, that's the same squirrel we saw in the woods, the day we went nutting."

"I know it," cried Bessie; "at least I am as sure as I can be, for that one was like this, spotted white and gray, and each of them had only a part of a tail. To think of the little thing being so hungry as to come after my nuts! If I can only find its hole, I'll feed it regularly every day."

"What _could_ bring it so far from the woods?" cried Nelly, laughing. "I never heard of any thing more strange, even in a book."

"You stay here and watch if it comes out again," said Bessie, "and I'll run tell mother. Perhaps she can help find its hiding-place."

Nelly went with her as far as the foot of the stairs to get her shoes, for her feet were now growing very cold. Then she returned to the garret, but nothing more had been seen of the squirrel when Bessie appeared with her mother.

"It was here, just here, that it went out of sight," cried Bessie; "somewhere by these blocks and this old fire-board."

Her mother laughed, and said if there were nothing worse than a squirrel in the house, she should be glad.

"We must look," she added, "and perhaps we can discover its nest; that is, if it has one here, for, Bessie, it has just occurred to me that this is the way your Madeira nut disappeared. If we can find the nest we may find your money too," and she began to move out the furniture from the wall.

At the mention of the Madeira nut, Bessie colored deeply, and really seemed struck with true shame.

"Oh, mother," she said, "to think that I have never, all this while, cleaned out that drawer! Some of the nuts are still in it, and the other things too, just as they were that day when I lost my money. I have meant to clear it out so many times!"

Her mother turned and looked at her sorrowfully.

"Bessie," she said, "I have for years done all I could do, to make a careful, neat little girl, out of a careless, untidy one. I am beginning now to leave you to yourself, hoping that time will help you to see yourself as others see you. I have noticed often that your drawer remained in the same condition, but I did not speak of it."

"Oh, mother," cried Bessie, frightened, "don't leave me to myself, _don't_. I shall never learn to be good at all, that way. Oh, don't give me up yet."

"My poor child," said her mother, "if you will only _try_, so that I can _see_ you trying, my confidence in you will come back, but not otherwise. I want something more than empty promises. You forget them as soon as you make them."

"But I will try, I will _really_ try _this_ time," said Bessie with tears in her eyes. "I'm _lazy_, mother, I'm _real_ lazy, but I am not as bad as I might be. I'll clean the drawer just as soon as we look for the nest, _sure_."

"Well," said her mother, half smiling at the little girl's doleful tone, "well, I will give you this one more chance. We will take the drawer for a new starting point. Come, Nelly, let us search now for the squirrel's hole. It must be somewhere about here, for it would never come up by the stairs, I think."

They began a thorough hunt, lifting up every light article in the out-garret, where they were, and dragging the more ponderous furniture from their places. It was a sort of store-away place for things not in every-day use, and therefore it took some time to examine every thing. An occasional pile of nibbled nut-shells was all that was brought to light.

"Well," said Nelly, laughing, as she looked under the last article, a little broken chair belonging to Bessie. "Well, I don't see but that Madame Squirrel has escaped us. I can't meet with a trace of her, for my part, beyond these nut-shells."

"Nor I either," wofully added Bessie.

"Yet how could it have run away from us, since we can find no hole in the floor, and Nelly did not see it run into any of these other rooms?" asked Bessie's mother.

"Perhaps it is hidden in the furniture itself," remarked Nelly.

"Stop a moment," said Bessie's mother, as Nelly began to pull out the drawers of an old bureau, "here are some crossbeams in the wall by the fire-board, that look very much as though a set of sharp teeth had nibbled a hole in them,--yes, it is so! Well, I think we've tracked the squirrel now! The place is such a little way from the floor, that it could jump in and scamper off through the walls, before any one could molest it. Perhaps it is far away in the woods, laughing at us, at this minute."

The children drew near the beams in question, with strong curiosity. It was indeed as Bessie's mother said; there were the marks of teeth in the wood, and just where the beams joined was a hole quite large enough for a squirrel to pass through.

"It is the same one we saw in the woods, I know it is," said Nelly, "but what should bring it here?"

"Perhaps, in time, we can tame it; that is if we have not already frightened it away. _May_ I try to tame it, mother?"

"Yes," said her mother. "I think Bunny will make a pretty pet. We can strew a few grains of corn, or a few nuts about its hole every day, until it learns to regard us as its friends; but a little girl that I know must get into the good habit of putting her things in their proper places, and shutting her table drawers _tight_, or it will continue to help itself to more valuable things, and make itself a plague to us. I do not doubt that Bunny has your money in its nest at this minute. It thought, probably, that it was carrying off a good, sound nut."

"Yes," said Bessie, "and I dare say it was it that ran off with those in my basket, and all the others in the garden. Poor, dear Nathan! I must tell him about it, and ask him to forget my cross words. One of my Sunday-school hymns says, 'Kind words can never die.' I wonder if the unkind words live forever too. Do they, mother?"

"I hope not," was the answer, "but many an unkind word leaves a sting in the mind of the person to whom it is said, long after the one who uttered it has entirely forgotten it. I don't believe Nathan, for instance, will soon cease to remember that you asked him why he took your nuts. You acted too impulsively."

"Too _what_, mother?" asked Bessie, curiously.

"Too _impulsively_. That is, you did not wait to consider the matter, but spoke out just as you felt, as soon as you saw him. You must certainly ask him to excuse you. If you are always very gentle to him in future, perhaps your offence will be forgotten. There is no end to the soothing effect of those 'kind words that never die!'"

"He was cross enough with _me_ about it," said Bessie, reflectively. "I think a few kind words would not hurt _him_ to say."

"We have nothing to do with Nathan as to that," said her mother. "If he chooses to be ill-tempered, it is his own business, while it is ours to bear it from him patiently. It is only by such means that we can teach him how wrong he is."

"I think that is pretty hard to do," said Bessie, shaking her head, "don't you, Nelly? _I_ always want to answer right straight back."

"And if you do," said her mother, "you will find that you invariably make the case worse than before. A noble poet, whose works you may read when you are older, has said, 'Be silent and endure!' and experience will prove to you both, that this silence and this endurance is the true key to happiness. Now, run down stairs, Bessie, and bring me up the little saw. The idea has just come to me, to saw away some of the board at the side of these beams. That will give us a good view of what is going on in the wall, and will not hurt its appearance much, either."

Bessie soon reappeared with the saw, which, as it was small, her mother had no difficulty in handling. She took it from her and began operations at once, inserting the sharp end of it in a crevice in the wood, and moving it gradually across the grain, until the end of the board fell on the floor, where the sawdust already lay.

"Oh, let me see!" cried Bessie, in wild delight at this exposure of the squirrel's haunt. And

"Oh, let _me_ see _too_!" cried Nelly.

But Bessie's mother said she thought she had better take a peep first, so she lowered her eyes to the aperture and looked in. It was dark, and her eyes, accustomed to the sun-light, at first could distinguish nothing. Gradually, however, she found that she could see a little way around the hole with great distinctness, and it was not long before a small heap of rags, apparently, attracted her attention on one of the corner beams.

"What is it, mother? what do you find?" cried Bessie, as her mother put in her hand to feel what this heap could be. Something warm met the touch of her fingers, and she drew back, slightly startled.

On examining further, she found that this was indeed the animal's nest, and that these soft, warm objects, curled up in it so nicely, were probably her little young ones.

"There!" she said, laughing, "come see, children, what I have found! Here is the squirrel's nest, and two of her little babies!"

The girls peered eagerly through the hole at these newly discovered treasures.

"The darlings!" cried Bessie, "we can surely tame these little creatures, mother, they are so young. It will be no trouble at all."

"We must not take them from the nest," replied her mother. "If we can tame them by kindness, and by gradually accustoming them to our harmless visits, I am very willing to make pets of them."

"Oh, how pleasant that will be," exclaimed Bessie, in an ecstasy. "Do look, Nelly, at their pretty eyes. I don't know but that I shall be just as well satisfied with my two little squirrels as you are with your two lambs."

As she spoke, she put in her hand to touch the tiny animals on the head, and smooth them softly, but something at the side of the nest suddenly arrested her attention, and she did not do so.

"Oh, mother," she cried, "I do believe here is my Madeira nut, among this rubbish and empty hickory shells about the nest. I do believe it,--I do believe it! It _looks_ like it, I am positive of that. It seems whole, too. I don't think it has been nibbled at all! How glad I am!"

"Can you reach it?" asked her mother; "if you can, do so."

Bessie made what she called "a long arm," and in a moment more she seized the nut and brought it into open daylight.

"Oh, mother," she said, dancing around the garret joyfully, "it _is_ my nut! Here is a little place in the side where the squirrel has bitten, and you can see the money right through it! She found that there was nothing good to eat in it, so she stopped just in time not to spoil it entirely. I am so glad--I am so glad!"

THE END.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired. The varied hyphenation of "watercress" and "water-cress" was retained.

Page 20, "lewer" changed to "lower" (the lower half which)