ones were very sorry that he was gone, for they liked very much to listen
to all his wonderful stories, which they thought were true; and they told
their father and mother how they wished they would leave the dull island
and the old tree, and go down the lakes, and see the wonderful things that
their black cousin had described.

But the old ones shook their heads, and said they feared there was more
fiction than truth in the tales they had heard, and that if they were wise
they would stay where they were. "What do you want more, my dear
children," said their mother, "than you enjoy here? Have you not this
grand old oak for a palace to live in; its leaves and branches spreading
like a canopy over your heads, to shelter you from the hot sun by day and
the dews by night? Are there not moss, dried grass, and roots beneath, to
make a soft bed for you to lie upon? and do not the boughs drop down a
plentiful store of brown ripe acorns? That silver lake, studded with
islands of all shapes and sizes, produces cool clear water for you to
drink and bathe yourselves in. Look at those flowers that droop their
blossoms down to its glassy surface, and the white lilies that rest upon
its bosom,--will you see anything fairer or better if you leave this
place? Stay at home and be contented."

"If I hear any more grumbling," said their father, "I shall pinch your
ears and tails." So the little squirrels said no more, but I am sorry to
say they did not pay much heed to their wise, old mother's counsels; for
whenever they were alone, all their talk was how to run away, and go
abroad to see the world, as their black cousin had called the new
settlement down the lakes. It never came into the heads of the silly
creatures that those wonderful stories they had been told originated in an
artful scheme of the greedy black squirrel, to induce them to leave their
warm pleasant house in the oak, that he and his children might come and