Jonas took the glass, and they all three went up into the barn chamber.
Jonas opened the glass, and held it up to his eye. The boys stood by looking on silently. At length, Jonas said,
"No, we have not caught him."
"How do you know?" said the boys.
"O, I can see the trap, and it is not sprung."
"Is not sprung?" said James, "what do you mean by sprung?"
"Shut. It is not shut. I can see it open, and of course the squirrel is not there."
"O, he may be in," said Rollo, "just nibbling the corn. Do let us go and see."
Jonas smiled, and said he could not go then, but he would look through the spy-glass again towards noon. He then gave the glass to Rollo, and it was carried back safely into the house.
James soon after went home, and Rollo sat down in the parlor to his reading. Afterwards he came out, and went to building cities in a sandy corner of the garden. He was making Rome,-for his father had told him that Rome was built on seven hills, and he liked to make the seven hills in the sand. He made a long channel for an aqueduct, and went into the house to get a dipper of water to fill his aqueduct, when he met James coming again. So they went in, and got the spy-glass, and asked Jonas to go up and look again.
Jonas adjusted the glass, held it up to his eye, and looked some time in silence, and then said,-
"Yes, it is sprung, I believe. Yes, it is certainly sprung."
"O, then we have caught him," said the boys, capering about. "Let us go and see."
"Perhaps we have caught him," said Jonas, "but it is not certain; sometimes the trap gets sprung accidentally. However, you may go and ask your father if he thinks it worth while for me to leave my work long enough to go down and see."
Rollo came back with the permission granted, and they all set off; Rollo and James running on eagerly before.
When they came to the trap, they found it shut. Jonas took it up, and tipped it one way and the other, and listened. He heard something moving in it, but did not know whether it was anything more than the corn cob. Then he said he would open the trap a very little, and let Rollo peep in.
He did so. Rollo said it looked all dark; he could not see any thing. Then Jonas opened it a little farther, and Rollo saw two little shining eyes, and presently a nose smelling along at the crack.
"Yes, here he is, here he is," said Rollo; "look at him, James, look at him;-see, see."
They all peeped at him, and then Jonas took the box under his arm, and they returned home.
Jonas told the boys he was not willing to keep the squirrel a prisoner very long, but he would try to contrive some way by which they might look at him. Now, there was, in the garret, a small fire-fender, which had been laid aside as old and useless. Jonas recollected this, and thought he could fix up a temporary cage with it. So he took a small box about as large as a raisin-box, which he found in the barn, and laid it down on its side, so as to turn the open side towards the trap, and then moved the trap close up to it. He then covered up all the rest of the open part of the box with shingles, and asked James and Rollo to hold them on. Then he carefully lifted up the cover of the trap, and made a rattling in the back part of it with the spindle. This drove the squirrel through out of the trap into the box.
When Jonas was sure that he was in, he took the old fender and slid it down very cautiously between the trap and the box, so as to cover the open part entirely, and make a sort of grated front, like a cage. Then he took the trap away, and there the little nut-cracker was, safely imprisoned, but yet fairly exposed to view.
That is, they thought he was safely imprisoned; but he, little rogue, had no idea of submitting without giving his bolts and bars a try. At first, he crept along, with his tail curled over his back, in a corner, and looked at the strange faces which surrounded him. "Let us give him a little corn," said Rollo; "perhaps he is hungry;" and he was just slipping some kernels in between the wires of the fender, when Bunny sprang forward, and, with a jump and a squeeze, forced his slender body between two of the wires that were bent a little apart, leaped down upon the barn floor, ran along to the corner, up the post, and then crept leisurely along on a beam. Presently, he stopped, and looked down, as if considering what to do next.
The moment he escaped, the boys exclaimed, "O, catch him, catch him," and were going to run after him; but Jonas said that it would do no good, for they could not catch him again now, and had better stand still and see what he would do.
He soon began to run along on the beam; thence he ascended to the scaffold, and made his way towards an open window. He jumped up to the window sill, and then disappeared. The boys all ran around, outside, and were just in time to catch a glimpse of him, running along on the top of the fence, down towards the woods again.
"Do let us run after him and catch him," said Rollo.
"Catch him!" said Jonas, with a laugh, "you might as well catch the wind. No, the only way is to set our trap for him again. I meant to let him go, myself; but he is not going to slip through our fingers in that way, I tell him." So Jonas went down that night and set the trap again.
For several days after this, the trap remained unsprung, and the boys began to think that they should never see him again. At last, however, one day, when Rollo was playing in the yard, he saw Jonas coming up out of the woods with the trap under his arm. Rollo ran to meet him, and was delighted to find that the squirrel was caught again.
HOW TO KEEP A SQUIRREL
Jonas contrived to tighten the wires of the lender, by weaving in other wires so as to secure the little prisoner this time; and when he was fairly in his temporary cage, the boys were so pleased with his graceful form and beautiful colors, especially the elegant stripes on his back, that they begged hard to keep him; and they made many earnest promises never to forget to feed him. Jonas said, at last,
"On the whole. I believe I will let you keep him, but you must do it in my way."
"What is your way?"
"Why, after a day or two, we must carry him back to his raspberry-bush, and let him go. But you may give him a name, and call him yours, and you can carry some corn down there now and then, to feed him with,-and then you will see him, occasionally, playing about there."
James and Rollo did not exactly like this plan at first, but when they considered how much better the little squirrel himself would like it, they adopted it; and Rollo proposed that they should tie a string round his neck for a collar, so that they might know him again.
"I can get mother to let me have a little pink riband," said he, "and that will be beautiful."
"It would be a good plan," said Jonas, "to mark him in some way, but he might gnaw off the riband."
"O no," said James, "he could not gnaw any thing on his own neck." Rollo thought so too, and they both tried to bite their own collar ribands, by way of showing Jonas how impossible it was.
"I don't know exactly what the limits are of a squirrel's gnawing," said Jonas. "Perhaps he might tear it off with his claws."
"Or he might get another squirrel to gnaw it off for him," said James.
"Yes," said Jonas, "and there is another difficulty. He might be jumping from one tree to another, and catch his collar in some little branch, and so get hung, without judge or jury."
"What can we do then?" said Rollo.
"I think," said Jonas, "that the best plan would be to dye the end of his tail black. That would not hurt him any; and yet, as he always holds his tail up, we should see it, and know him."