WE have had such a nice walk, grandmamma!’ said Alice, entering the room. ‘We went first with Mary to the village, and she bought herself some needles and pins, and some cotton; and then we left those books, which you gave us, at the rectory; and we saw Mr. Potter’s beautiful garden, which goes up that steep hill by the house. There were such a number of roses in full blossom!
‘We walked a little way into Branscombe parish, and there was a big stone, and Mary told us that it was there to show where Salcombe and Branscombe met. It was so funny for Beatrice and me to jump in and out of Salcombe! How can people divide places?’
‘Places or parishes or countries that cannot be divided by water must be divided by landmarks. These landmarks are sometimes large stones, sometimes an old tree, or a line of trees, or a wooden post; but water divides the best.
‘I remember, when I was young, travelling from Belgium into Prussia, and only a post painted with each country’s colours served to show us where Belgium ended and where Prussia began; and my sisters and I thought it fun to jump with one step from one country into another, as you did to-day from one parish into another.
‘Because England is an island, and is separated by the sea from other countries, English people think it strange that nothing more than a stone or a post can serve as boundary between two strange countries; and that the people on the one side of the stone or post should speak one language, and on the other should speak another language. Some countries are divided by a chain of mountains, as the Pyrenees divide France from Spain; the Alps, France from Italy. You have learnt about these chains of mountains, my Alice, and to-morrow you shall show me on the map the different mountain boundaries.’
‘But we came home by the wood, grandmamma,’ said Beatrice, ‘and we saw such pretty creatures jumping about in the trees.’
‘Mary called them squirrels,’ said Alice. ‘They were so pretty, and jumped from one tree to another such long jumps, and swung backwards and forwards on such little branches that we were afraid that they would fall down.’
‘Squirrels are very pretty, interesting little animals,’ said grandmamma, ‘and live in the woods; and I think that they like fir-trees most, for I have seen them often in a fir wood, and I know that they eat the seeds of the spruce fir—you have seen the pretty long cones—and the squirrel bites the cones asunder and eats the seeds.
‘Did you observe how small and slender they are, with small heads and pointed noses, and such bright eyes? The colour of their fur is reddish brown, and they have such a long bushy tail. The squirrel makes two nests, a summer nest and a winter nest. In the latter, which is very strongly built, and thick and warm, it rolls itself up and lies asleep through much of the winter time. The squirrel’s summer nest, on the contrary, is light and airy, and it is made near the end of a bough, so that it swings about with the wind, and rocks like “the cradle on the tree-top,” and there the mother-squirrel has her little ones: but if any one should try and climb the tree, she takes her little ones, one by one, in her mouth, and leaps from branch to branch and from tree to tree, till she is sure they are safe; but when the danger has passed, she takes them back again to her nest in the same manner.’
‘How clever of the squirrel! I should like to see a squirrel jumping with a little squirrel in its mouth. May we go again to the wood? perhaps we may see the pretty squirrels again.’
