"In fact, my dear," said old Mother Red one winter to her mate, "what
is the use of one's living in this cold, hollow tree, when these
amiable people have erected this pretty cottage, where there is
plenty of room for us and them too? Now I have examined between the
eaves, and there is a charming place where we can store our nuts, and
where we can whip in and out of the garret, and have the free range
of the house; and, say what you will, these humans have delightful
ways of being warm and comfortable in winter."

So Mr. and Mrs. Red set up housekeeping in the cottage, and had no
end of nuts and other good things stored up there. The trouble of
all this was, that, as Mrs. Red was a notable body, and got up to
begin her housekeeping operations, and woke up all her children, at
four o'clock in the morning, the good people often were disturbed by
a great rattling and fuss in the walls, while yet it seemed dark
night. Then sometimes, too, I grieve to say, Mrs. Squirrel would
give her husband vigorous curtain lectures in the night, which made
him so indignant that he would rattle off to another quarter of the
garret to sleep by himself; and all this broke the rest of the worthy
people who built the house.

What is to be done about this we don't know. What would you do about
it? Would you let the squirrels live in your house or not? When our
good people come down of a cold winter morning, and see the squirrels
dancing and frisking down the trees, and chasing each other so
merrily over the garden chair between them, or sitting with their
tails saucily over their backs, they look so jolly and jaunty and
pretty that they almost forgive them for disturbing their night's
rest, and think that they will not do anything to drive them out of