The Way of the Wild (Hawkes)/The Red Rogue
The Red Rogue was a rogue, not because he was red, but because he comes from a roguish and a rascally family, so perhaps it was not so much his fault. If one's forebears have been bad for untold generations it is hard to break away from the habit, so I do not condemn him altogether.
Besides, his badness was only of the mischievous order, with one exception which I will mention later.
I had owned many red squirrels when I was a boy. All of these I caught in a box trap. They were always kept in a cage. Sometimes they died after a long season of captivity, but more frequently I let them go when I had become tired of watching their antics.
But the Red Rogue came to me in quite a different manner. I simply stooped down under a walnut tree one July afternoon and picked him up in my hand. I took the precaution, however, to put my handkerchief over his head. Many severe nips that I had received in boyhood taught me that precaution.
The Rogue was a half-grown red squirrel. Just what was the matter with him I never determined. Possibly he had fallen and injured himself, or been stunned, for he was rather quiet for a day or two.
A squirrel under normal conditions rarely falls or hurts himself while running and jumping in the tree-tops. They will jump from incredible heights without injuring themselves. I once saw a red squirrel jump from the top of a maple which we estimated was a hundred feet high. He jumped to the top of the farmhouse where I lived when a boy. It was a good seventy-foot jump, but he floated down as gracefully as a dead leaf in autumn.
When a squirrel jumps from a great height he spreads his legs out, and flattens out his body so as to present as much surface as possible to the air. He also seems to fluff up his fur. His tail he spreads out behind and uses it as a rudder while he falls slowly and gracefully.
Once when John Burroughs was traveling in Mexico he was much impressed with the stories that the natives told him about the ability of the black Mexican squirrel to jump from a great height. The naturalist scoffed at the natives so much that they finally tried an experiment for his benefit. A black squirrel was caught and taken in a bag to the top of a cliff which fell sheer for five hundred feet. They opened the mouth of the bag, while a man stood on either side of it to prevent the squirrel's escape in any way but by jumping. The squirrel looked first at one of his captors and then at the other, and then over the side of the cliff. Without a second's hesitation he took the leap. He was six or eight seconds making the descent, striking gracefully upon a rock. He did not seem to be in the slightest degree injured by his long jump. Any other quadruped, with the exception of the flying squirrel, would have been pounded to jelly.
After examining the Red Rogue carefully to see if I could determine what made him so lifeless, I wrapped him in my handkerchief, put him in my pocket, and took him home.
We had no cat at the time, so he was given the full run of the house, or rather, he took it, for after two or three days he made himself very much at home. His dazed, half-paralyzed condition gave way very shortly to antics and capers, which made the house very lively whenever he was taken with a playful mood.
His principal articles of diet were popcorn, walnuts, peanuts, hard breadcrusts, and several kinds of cereals, such as puffed rice, grape-nuts and the like. We always fed him on top of the old bureau but he often preferred to eat elsewhere, and he would take his breakfast to most unexpected places. We were constantly brushing up his chankings in every part of the house.
It was very pleasant though to see him sit on top of the old bureau and gnaw his way to the heart of a walnut. He always prospected about before attacking a nut, and gnawed into the meat where the shell was thinnest. How he knew where the shell was the thinnest I do not know. But I have often noticed this fact when examining nuts in the woods that had been partly eaten by squirrels.
I loved best to see him sit on his haunches, his tail cocked saucily over his shoulder, his bright eyes watching my every motion while he scolded and barked away for dear life. I used to imitate his own scolding and barking by putting my lips to the back of my hand and blowing and sucking. This was the way that I had called squirrels when I was a boy.
When I began scolding and barking he would stop for a time and watch me narrowly. Presently he would seem to detect a false note in my performance, then he would set up a great racket, showing me just how it was done.
One of his bad habits was taking all sorts of small articles which he should have let alone and hiding them in most unexpected places. Thus he would gradually scatter the contents of his mistress's work-basket all over the house. If she wanted a ball of darning-cotton, it was just as apt to be in a pigeonhole in my desk as anywhere else. One day he discovered the button-box and hid its contents in every part of the house. But it was on my desk that he made his worst attacks. I am usually very particular about my desk and do not want things disturbed there, so I often wonder how I ever put up with this small red imp so long. Rubber erasers were his special delight. He did not gnaw them, but he would carry them off and hide them by the half dozen. At least, I had to purchase a whole dozen before I hit upon the scheme of putting them in a drawer that he could not open. Pencils, penholders and other small articles he also tumbled about. It was most annoying to have the contents of a pigeonhole pulled out and scattered about in order that a red rascal might crawl into the small enclosure and go to sleep, but he looked so cute when I discovered him there that I forgave him.
Nor was his mischief confined to the house. Many an unripe butternut he dropped down from the old tree, and one day when he attacked my pear tree and dropped down half a bushel of green pears, I was quite furious, but when I plugged him with some of the green pears, he scampered down the tree and ran up to me to see what it was all about.
Had not his misdemeanors passed from the mischief state to that of a real crime I do not know how long we might have been bothered with him, but his last offense I could not condone, although I had made many excuses for him. This last offense was nothing short of murder.
It was about the first of August. The pair of robins that had builded in an old apple-tree near the house had been very prolific, and had hatched their third brood about a week before. Knowing the murderous tendencies of the red squirrel I had hoped that our pet would not discover them, but I had reckoned wrongly, for his bright eyes seemed to see everything.
One forenoon when I was trying to write, I noticed a great commotion from the robins in the old tree. I at once went to their assistance, thinking that perhaps the grackles or the starlings were troubling them, but imagine my disgust to find the Red Rogue sitting on the edge of the nest, deliberately cracking the skulls of the young robins and then dropping the dead fledglings to the ground.
I was angry enough to have had him shot, but I could not bring myself to do that. I had watched him too long, and he had too strong a hold on my affections, so I merely frightened him away and when he was once more in the house I caught him and put him in the cage, where he should have been kept from the first. Such rogues as he should always be behind bars.
He scolded and barked and was very indignant. To his mind we had played a mean trick on him. He had been good as red squirrels go, and we had locked him up like a common criminal.
After this, whenever I looked at him, or whenever I heard him barking or scolding, I plotted to get rid of him. My opportunity came sooner than I had anticipated. A day or two after the Rogue's last offense, I discovered
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another red squirrel barking in a distant orchard. I at once took the cage under my arm and set off in the direction of the orchard. I soon discovered the other squirrel. From the dull color of the coat and the shape of the head, I concluded that it was a young female red squirrel. The fates were good to me. Here was a Delilah for my Samson. So I set the cage on the stone wall and let the Rogue listen to the chatter of this, his wild kindred. He was much interested. I presume he had thought he was the only squirrel in the world. Soon he began to chatter himself, and the wild squirrel stopped and listened. Presently the other squirrel started running toward the cage. Then it was that I opened the door and said good-bye to the Red Rogue, not without regret, angry as I was with him. I walked away for a hundred feet and watched to see what would happen.
The Rogue and the stranger ran toward each other until they were about four feet apart then stopped and sat up on their haunches and viewed one another critically. Then the stranger started slowly along the wall and the Rogue followed. Slowly at first, then faster and faster.
Finally both jumped from the wall and ran up a tree. Back and forth on the branches they raced, having the finest sort of a game of tag. I watched them for half an hour and finally saw them come down the tree. I had expected this, but my interest was in their next move. The stranger was the first to mount the wall. The Red Rogue followed close, and without a second's hesitation she led the way along the stone wall toward the distant woods. The Red Rogue looked back at his empty cage on the wall for a second, then followed. I watched until they were out of sight, then took the empty cage home. I have never seen the Rogue since that day, but I suppose he is living the life of a wild red squirrel. Very improvident, very mischievous, and rather scatterbrained, I presume he occasionally robs birds' nests in the season of fledglings, but as long as I am not responsible for it I do not care so much. Of course I would rather he would be a respectable citizen of the woods, but he is not wholly bad, so I have forgiven him and remember only his pranks and capers, which certainly made him a most amusing fellow.