was the slaughtered squirrel. It turned out to be my
hat, which, blowing merrily away from the bramble whereon it was hung,
had been captured by my friend in need, who proudly restored it,
somewhat the worse for the manner of its rescue. Later on, in the
hushed Indian summer noons, Joy-of-Life and I would take our luncheon
out into the woods, where our golden collie would roll over and over in
a rustling bed of leaves much of his own color or of brown, fragrant
pine-needles, his bright eyes always on the watch for any aggression
from the peering citizens of the trees.

The winter, however, was Sigurd's heroic season. He had the soul of a
helper, not of a pet, and longed for occupation, responsibility,
service. His sentry duty at night, his guardianship in our walks, his
herding of the family into the dining-room three times a day with
punctual solicitude, these were not enough. It was amusing and yet, in
a way, touching to see with what strenuous earnestness he took upon
himself the task of driving the squirrels away from the bird boxes. For
our neighbors, the "shadowtails," as the Greeks called them, were so
obtuse as to appropriate to their own comfort and convenience every
provision we made for the flying folk. We had put up in the trees near
the house a few bird palaces, variously named, according to the
dominant interest of those whose respective windows overlooked them,
Toynbee Hall, the Tabard Inn, the Waldorf-Astoria, the Mermaid Tavern;
but their bluebird tenants were soon ejected, and families of baby
squirrels, for whose repose their parents busily chewed up mattresses
of leaf and bark, were reared in those proud abodes. To this Sigurd had
to submit, though he would lie for hours on the piazza, his chin on his
paws, wondering why the Collie Creator, whom he probably took to be
much like his adorable father Ralph, only a thousand times as big--for
had not Sigurd heard in the skies the thunder of his bark?--denied to
dogs the gift of climbing trees. But their attack on the food-boxes
brought these pirates almost within Sigurd's reach.

From several of the upper windows had been built out simple and
practical feeding-shelves,--shallow wooden boxes partitioned off by
cross-pieces into some six or eight compartments. Here we would put out
marrowbones, suet, shreds and scraps from the dinner-plates, nuts,
acorns, pinecones, grains, crumbs, fragments of cheese, and here, all
the long winter through, our welcome gu