lived in; and close by the house was a barn, a stable, a cow-shed, and a
sheep-pen, and there was a garden full of fruit and flowers, and an
orchard of apple-trees close by.

One day Velvet-paw ran up one of the apple-trees and began to eat an
apple; it looked very good, for it had a bright red cheek, but it was hard
and sour, not being ripe. "I do not like these big, sour berries," said
she, making wry faces as she tried to get the bad taste out of her mouth
by wiping her tongue on her fore-paw. Nimble had found some ripe currants;
so he only laughed at poor Velvet for the trouble she was in.

These little grey squirrels now led a merry life; they found plenty to
eat and drink, and would not have had a care in the world, if it had not
been for the noisy little dog Pinch, who let them have no quiet, barking
and baying at them whenever he saw them; and also for the watchful eyes of
a great tom-cat, who was always prowling about the mill, or creeping round
the orchard and outhouses; so that with all their good food they were not
quite free from causes of fear, and no doubt sometimes wished themselves
safe back on the little rocky island, in their nest in the old oak-tree.

Time passed away--the wheat and the oats were now ripe and fit for the
scythe, for in Canada the settlers mow wheat with an instrument called a
"cradle scythe." The beautiful Indian corn was in bloom, and its long pale
green silken threads were waving in the summer breeze. The blue-jays were
busy in the fields of wheat; so were the red-winged blackbirds, and the
sparrows, and many other birds, great and small; field-mice in dozens were
cutting the straw with their sharp teeth, and carrying off the grain to
their nests; and as to the squirrels and chitmunks, there were scores of
them, black, red, and grey, filling their cheeks with the grain, and
laying it out on the rail fences and on the top of the stumps to dry,