le of the box and resume the stuffing and
pillaging process more diligently than ever, under his very eyes,
Sigurd, frantic with fury, would beat an utterly tremendous tattoo upon
the pane. Three times one January he crashed through the glass in one
of my chamber windows, cutting his face and paws and subjecting the
room to a more Arctic ventilation than I cared for. On these occasions
the squirrels saved themselves by prodigious leaps into the nearest
tree and did not venture back while that jagged gap remained,--so
satisfactory a result, from Sigurd's point of view, that he marveled at
my folly in calling in a glazier to repair the damage. As the man was
working at the window, Sigurd would look from him to me with a puzzled
and reproachful expression accentuated by the long strips of court
plaster across his nose.

He had a vigorous ally in my mother, who brought her own bright wits to
bear on the circumvention of the enemy. She knitted a little bag,
filled it with nutmeats and hung it from the middle sash outside the
window, so that it dangled halfway down in the open space which gave
the squirrels no footing but delighted our winged pensioners. It was
fun to see two spirited fluffs squaring at each other atop a lump of
suet for the best chance to rise at the bag, till another plumy midget
came fiercely down upon them and drove them, chirping remonstrance, off
to the outer edges of the box. Then the newcomer, bristling with
victory, flew up and secured the most desirable position on that
swinging dinner-pail, while the others, nudging and scrambling, sought
for a footing on the further side. But the squirrels studied the
situation from above and from below and presently learned to run up the
blind, make a sidelong leap to the bag and cling to it with all four
legs and feet, while they gnawed through the threads until the goodies
literally poured into their mouths. There they would cling and feast,
while on the other side of the glass my mother and Sigurd, both of them
sharply protesting and angrily rapping the pane, held a Council of War.
As a result, my mother bought two iron sink-mops, wired them together
and triumphantly fashioned a bag which even the strong teeth of the
furry burglars, for all their persevering and ingenious efforts, could
not bite open. But the happy chickadees and nut-hatches would perch
there, by relays, all day long, thrusting their bills through the iron
interstices and drawing out, bit by b