"She is nice enough," said the old mother-squirrel, "if you keep far
enough off; but I tell you, you can't be too careful."

Now this good fairy that the squirrels discoursed about was a nice
little old lady that the children used to call Aunt Esther, and she
was a dear lover of birds and squirrels, and all sorts of animals,
and had studied their little ways till she knew just what would
please them; and so she would every day throw out crumbs for the
sparrows, and little bits of bread and wool and cotton to help the
birds that were building their nests, and would scatter corn and nuts
for the squirrels; and while she sat at her work in the bow-window
she would smile to see the birds flying away with the wool, and the
squirrels nibbling their nuts. After a while the birds grew so tame
that they would hop into the bow-window and eat their crumbs off the
carpet.

"There, mamma," said Tit-bit and Frisky, "only see Jenny Wren and
Cock Robin have been in at the bow-window, and it didn't hurt them,
and why can't we go?"

"Well, my dears," said old Mother Squirrel, "you must do it very
carefully; never forget that you haven't wings like Jenny Wren and
Cock Robin."

So the next day Aunt Esther laid a train of corn from the roots of
the trees to the bow-window, and then from the bow-window to her
work-basket, which stood on the floor beside her; and then she put
quite a handful of corn in the work-basket, and sat down by it, and
seemed intent on her sewing. Very soon, creep, creep, creep, came
Tit-bit and Frisky to the window, and then into the room, just as sly