DUKE had stood for a long time looking out the wide windows of our little north-woods cabin. A springtime tempest was raging through the surrounding forest, setting the growing things to bowing frantically as though royalty were passing by. Our small woodland lake, generally so quiet and gentle, was whipped into a foam. The waters raced past our island animated by wild enthusiasm as if they had found a short cut to the sea.
     Duke’s eyes danced and sparkled with merriment as he watched this spectacle of wilderness power and abandon. There was a stern but pleasant challenge to it that he loved. Intermittently he would emit a little parcel of laughter. While more musical, these laughs were not unlike the chatter of a kingfisher. And like the ever-ready twitter of that strange bird, one knew that Duke had plenty more laughs where those came from.
     Duke was a wonderful laugher! He was so filled with natural good humor he could get a giggle out of almost any situation. All the world loves a laugher! When anyone is so constituted that he watches for the merry side of things, everyone and everything wants to present him with the joke, jest or prank which will provoke a cackle

spasm—as we termed Duke’s joyous outbursts. Whenever we heard a funny story, we wanted to tell it or write it to Duke. If we saw something ludicrous in nature, we simply had to share it with him. Always we knew what to expect. He would stand listening with arms folded, a little habit that made his powerful broad shoulders look mountainous. From his height of six feet two inches he would look down at the speaker, his eyes a-twinkle with anticipation and his lips practicing little smiles. As the story, joke or gag unfolded, his attention was so rapt it helped you say your piece. Little samples of Duke’s laugh would come bubbling out as if he just couldn’t hold it all and some was spilling.
     You never had to say, “It’s time to laugh, Duke.” He was always ’way ahead of you, courtesy alone making him restrain himself until you had finished. But when the point of the story had been reached he would bend over, slipping his folded arms to his stomach as if a pain had suddenly developed there. He would lift one leg, balancing on the other, looking like a great blue heron about to take off. All this was but the recoil. We storytellers would stand back and watch—it was what we had been bargaining for.
     Duke would unwind and burst into a cackle spasm that would nearly set the furniture to dancing. He would beat his broad chest and hold his hands to his sides while he giggled one cadenza after another. Then he would begin adding to the original joke certain little embellishments of his own that prolonged and spread

the epidemic of merriment. We used to say, “You’ve never heard your own story until you tell it to Duke.” Everything funny was funnier when shared with him.
     Nature seemed to have discovered this fact that May morning. Usually there is very little that is funny about a near hurricane such as thrashed about us. But because Duke was looking out from our window, the forest was behaving like a convention of comedians. It was one of those days when gray clouds raced in unbroken array at treetop level, driven by a fitful and erratic northwest wind. Powerful pines bent condescendingly in the gale, which teased at the coiffures of birches and elms. Little itinerant showers trailed across the rugged north country, looking like torn veils half discarded by the clouds.
     The scene doesn’t sound humorous in description, but to Duke it presented an endless comedy. On the ground near the cabin some grain and crumbs of bread had been placed for our little friends of the forest. Two chipmunks coming from opposite directions, frantic to get at this food, had collided head-on. There was a fierce scramble for a moment, marked by indignant squeals and squeaks. Then the two diminutive creatures raced away in opposite directions to perch on stumps, there to sit with partially restrained tempers telling each other what a chipmunk thinks of a chipmunk who bumps into him.
     Duke had watched every detail of this incident with keen discernment. He saw things in it that few would, and maybe some things that were not there; but what he saw plus what he thought carried him away anew on the

wings of mirth. He humanized those chipmunk reactions, read the meaning of their expressions, and interpreted their speech until he had patched up a story worthy of Mark Twain.
     Event followed fast on event in nature’s vaudeville that morning. This technique of overlapping acts is often used in the theater. Entertainers say the second laugh should be started in an audience before the first has fully subsided. This seemed to be what nature had in mind. But assuredly the whole show was most disconcerting to my wife Giny and to me. Giny was in the kitchen creating culinary masterpieces in the form of pumpkin pies, or at least she was trying to. But she thought more of Duke and his perpetual circus than she did of mixing dough and making the filling. For my part, there was a perfectly blank piece of paper in my typewriter, waiting patiently for writings long overdue at the publishers’. My fingers toyed with the typewriter keys, and occasionally I would experience a flicker of an idea as to what I should write. But before I struck the first letter something new would happen in Duke’s comedy, and my thoughts would go racing there.
     Now a dozen proud, strutting, squawking bronzed grackles sailed in and lighted at the feeding station.
     “Of all the snooty outfits I ever saw!” exclaimed Duke. “Look! They have to squeeze their squeaks out of them.”
     It was even so. The big black birds with funny long beaks and yellow eyes walked about with noses in the air as if in effort to snub one another and everything else

as well. As they gave their harsh unmusical cries they puffed up like toy balloons, and their thin voices sounded like rusty hinges that would rather not be used. Duke said they walked like top sergeants. Their strides were disproportionately long, as if they were trying to stress their importance. A gentle tap on the windowpane put them to sudden flight. They darted through the foliage in marvelous manner, using their long tails like rudders. But in a moment they were back, searching eagerly about the feeding station for the bites of food they preferred. Obviously bread was in much favor, as they seized this first. But several who had taken pieces of crust found it still a bit too hard to suit their tastes. Hence, they took it in their beaks and flew to the bird bath, there to ge-dunk it deliberately! They sat patiently at one side until the bread was thoroughly soaked, and then ate it with many a squeaky cry about how good it was.
     Suddenly there was a flurry of wings as the black birds were startled by some disturbance in the brush. They perched at safe height in near-by trees until they made sure what it was. Then, discovering that it offered them no harm, they returned to their eating, taking no further notice of the creature which was approaching. Down the little path that circles among young balsam trees came a funny little animal, built so close to the ground it was difficult to see its legs.
     “Here comes something that looks like a cross between a dachshund and a jelly roll!” exclaimed Duke.
     Giny left her dough mixing, and I left my typewriter

to see Link, our half-friendly woodchuck, approach the feeding station. Link was an odd-appearing animal. She had come out of hibernation but a short time before and her skin hung in loose folds as if she were wearing a coat much oversized. Her legs were so short it was a question whether she walked or crawled. The grackles, sensing no fear of this vegetable-eating animal, would hardly get out of her way.
     Link’s supreme touch of comedy was the manner in which she ate. She found pieces of bread and worked industriously at putting them away. In fact, it seemed that she worked much harder at her eating than was necessary. She sat upright like a prairie dog, holding a piece of bread in her front feet. When she was taking a bite, her lower jaw dropped so low Duke expressed fear that it might fall off. 

Then as she brought it up, it would almost disappear into her pouchy cheeks and upper jaw. She looked like some aged grandmaw who had misplaced her teeth just before dinner, but with the pardonable persistence of her years just ate anyway.

There seemed to be danger that she might bite the end of her own nose.
     Link got her name through no choice of her own. Her mother, a loved pet of ours, had been called Sausage because she was ground hog. Link was a little member of the Sausage family, hence Link Sausage, or just plain Link. Terrible puns, I know, but the woodchucks didn’t mind.
     Two more natural-born comedians appeared on the scene—Salt and Pepper, our pesky pet porcupines. They came waddling out of the brush, one behind the other, walking with slow, measured stride. The grackles and Link did not so much as glance their way. For no creature has anything to fear of the old porcupine—so long as he does not attack the quill-pig. Normally porcupines do not eat meat, and so are not interested in destroying the creatures with whom they share the woods.
     I have often wished I could find a way to describe the porcupine. There seems to be nothing with which to compare him. The porky isn’t like anything but himself. He is slowness personified—slow living, slow moving, slow eating, slow thinking.
     Salt and Pepper that stormy day walked along as though they were going no place and had eternity to make it in. We did not see them often, and very seldom found them together. In their baby days they had lived on our island. But the wide world had claimed them. They went where they wished when they pleased. Occasionally they would return to the island, generally singly,

but once in a while they came together. Always on their visits they acted as if they had never been away, walking in as they did now, as if saying, “Hi, folks, is dinner ready?” They were so bowlegged they almost stepped on their own feet. The great mass of quills which covered their backs swayed from side to side like a load of hay as they moved along at turtle pace. Their noses dipped so low they almost scraped the ground, and their tails dragged along. Our experience has taught us that they have a very definite destination in mind, and head directly for a chosen somewhere. But to watch them gives the impression that they don’t care where they go, when they arrive or how soon they come back.
     Salt and Pepper nosed through the flock of squeaking grackles, then nearly bumped into Link. Reluctantly she moved a few inches to one side to let them pass. They investigated the cracked corn on the ground, and found it not to their liking. Bits of bread, too, failed to satisfy. We could hear their voices even above the howl of the wind, and we knew full well what these calls meant. All guests at the feeding station had to be disturbed because those two spoiled brats not only were choosy about their food, but were fussy about the form it was in. Bread was what they wanted, but not crumbs. They wanted whole slices! We tossed some out to them, causing grackles to dash into tall trees, and Link to scurry under the house. Then the pampered old porkies waddled over to the bread slices, and each picked up one. Braced by their strong and useful tails, they sat

back comfortably, held their food in their front feet, and looked somewhat like little monkeys.
     Now each began to eat in strictly individual style. Salt rammed his blunt and homely nose right into the center of his chosen slice of bread, gnawing and nibbling until he had made a round hole. When he reached the crust, he dropped that piece and picked up another. Pepper, on the other hand, began eating her slice from the side, chewing her way right through. Then she dropped the two remaining pieces and selected another whole slice. Grackles and Link had now returned, and they picked up the bits left by the wasteful and extravagant porkies. On the whole not a crumb was lost, but it was not through any virtue of those porcupines.
     Each moment now the number of wild-folk guests at the feeding station increased. Eight red-winged black birds circled in and lighted in spite of the mild objection of the grackles. We had been two years gaining the friendship of these redwings. As a rule, they are not very friendly birds. But one, in his first year’s plumage, had broken tradition and come to our cabin. Apparently his coming convinced others that we were to be trusted, for now there were a number of these beautiful birds visiting us regularly. As they flew in, it seemed they were sending semaphore signals by the flashing of the red spots on their wings.
     At the supreme moment of this woodland banquet, we took count of our guests. It was startling. On the ground at one time, within a space of a hundred square feet,

there were eleven grackles, eight redwings, two song sparrows, five juncoes, two robins, one nuthatch, six chipmunks, one woodchuck and two porcupines!
     A bit later all these creatures had left as if to set the stage for the next event. Now Blooey, our friendly blue jay, put on an act. When a strong wind blows, birds face into it on landing, perching or taking off. It is a fundamental technique which all airmen must know. No doubt our big old blue jay had this in mind as he came gliding into the feeding area. He floated in wearing his typical cocksure expression, apparently proud of his prowess on wing, and in right humor for a few tasty nibbles. But as he reached the ground the wind whipped around the cabin and came up behind him. It caught Blooey’s beautiful tail, and without regard for his feelings or his reputation as a flier, unceremoniously tipped him over, laying him for a brief moment flat on his back in a little puddle of rain water. With a wild flurry of feathers and wings he was up instantly, not hurt in the least—but horribly mortified! In uncontrolled anger he gave one of those sharp blue-jay cries with such emphasis that his voice broke into a nondescript sound like a teenage youth blasting two tones at once. Then Blooey flew away, screaming wildly, too much embarrassed and upset to indulge in even a bite.
     I felt actually concerned about Duke as he saw this. He bent over convulsed, but no sound would come out. His attempt at a laugh was just all breath. He went into his blue-heron pose, his arms all wrapped around an ache

somewhere in his midsection. I was grateful when I saw him draw in breath, for I had been fearful lest this intake would come too late. His face was red and tears were peering out of his eyes to find an easy course down his cheeks. After several desperate efforts he managed to get through a few little weak giggles, and finally he was pouring forth “Haw! Haws!” all over the cabin.
     “What is it now?” asked Giny, coming hurriedly in from the kitchen.
     I rose from my typewriter to get my share of the joke, whatever it was.
     But Duke had no breath for words at that moment. He could only point out the window. We tried to control our own laughter and get the story out of him, but there is nothing more infectious than laughter—heaven be praised! Duke made effort to tell us. He would swallow, wipe tears from his eyes, point out the window, explosively utter the one word “Blooey!” and then lose himself in another unrestrained outburst.
     As we coaxed and coaxed for the story, he tried to explain it to us in pantomime. Flapping his long muscular arms like wings, he imitated Blooey coming in to the feeding station. He flew about the cabin, much to its discomfiture. He aped the long, gliding flight of the bird, his arms held rigid and straight from his shoulders. Suddenly he swooped low, as Blooey had before the puddle, and then he turned a complete somersault. Rising and rubbing the sore places, he looked up with an expression of extreme embarrassment. Then he gave a

much exaggerated imitation of Blooey’s two-tone cry, and went flying at double time out the door to the kitchen.
     By this time the three of us had cackle spasms. It was many minutes before we had attained a mood sufficiently calm to gain the story of the old blue jay and his calamity.

     Giny and I were treasuring every merry moment with Duke. He had been at our Sanctuary often before, and always his coming was a happy event. But there was special significance in this visit. He looked the same as we had always known him, dressed in his faded woolen shirt and wrinkled khaki trousers. But we were mindful that in the cabin clothes closet hung a uniform of the United States Army, cut to fit his fine athletic figure. On the shoulders of the jacket were pinned the twin bars—“rail road tracks,” he called them—of the rank of captain. Duke had worked hard through long tedious months of training to gain that rank. These few days with us were part of his final leave before he left for some distant and unannounced battle zone. His parents, in a near-by city, had insisted that he come, even though it took a few precious days from his time with them. They knew well what it meant to him. There were difficult experiences before our captain. The laughter, beauty and solitude he was taking into his heart might be the last he would know for a long time.
     A single glance at him would tell anyone why he was called Duke. He certainly suggested nobility. While he had always been strong and active, his army training had

marshaled his strength and put it at his finger tips. He stood straight as a red pine, and looked as sturdy. He was lithe and graceful as a cat. His naturally curly hair had twisted tighter under the southern sun at training camp, and his skin was bronze as an Indian’s. As he stood before the cabin window that morning, he was the personification of strong, capable, cheerful, fearless American manhood.
     Now Duke had found a new amusing incident out in the gray day.
     “What is it this time?” asked Giny, who had at last slipped the pies into the oven. I pulled the still blank sheet of paper from my typewriter and got to my feet. We joined Duke to watch an outboard motorboat which had just come around a point of land and was slicing its way through companies of marching waves. Sometimes the craft seemed to leap free of the water as it literally skipped from the crest of one wave to the next. Quick-fading flowers of spreading spray marked its rough course through the waters. Duke wished he might be out there. Certainly that boat was the center of an exciting adventure. The lone occupant had a mammoth playground all to himself, and he was making the most of it.
     “He’s heading this way!” exclaimed Duke.
     The boat had altered its course and was coming directly toward us, bouncing, leaping over those endless, moving, liquid hurdles. It slowed down in the relatively calm water at the lee side of our island, and rounded a point to the little bay where our boathouse stands.

     Duke and I donned raincoats and went to meet our caller. It proved to be a neighbor boy, Bill, who had defied the gale to bring us an odd little gift.
     “Merry Christmas!” Bill said, as he handed us a small brown basket. It was packed with layers of cotton, and obviously contained something delicate and precious, for our young neighbor handled it with great tenderness and care. Duke took the gift half singing his comment, “I have a hunch there’s trouble in here!”
     Together we put the layers of cotton aside, amid repeated warnings from our visitor to “be careful, now.” Presently we looked on the gift itself. First we gave little gasps of surprise and admiration, and then we began calling in unison: “Giny! Oh, Giny! Oh, Gine-e-e-e-e!”
     “I’m afraid the pies will burn if I come,” she called from the cabin. “What is it?”
     “Let them burn!” we called back. “You just have to see this present.”
     Giny threw a raincoat over her head and came running to the boathouse, to join us in our ohs and ahs.
     In the center of the soft, warm nest lay four tiny baby red squirrels, or chickarees, not more than three weeks old. There were hardly enough of them to make one good mouse! But their tiny eyes were open, and they looked at us with babylike innocence and fearlessness. Giny began mothering them at once. She straightened out their tiny little feet, stroked their rich red fur with her finger tips and adjusted the cotton covering so that only their heads were exposed.

     A shower of questions was hurled at Bill. Where had he found them? Where were their parents? When had they been fed?
     Gradually we got the story. These little chickarees had lived in the hollow of a tree near his cabin. Our neighbors had been watching them, had heard their baby cries and had noted the mother squirrel coming and going. Then hours passed and she did not come to her family. The hunger cries of the little ones became desperate and incessant. As the neighbors hesitated, uncertain what they should do, the tiny squirrels took matters in their own hands. Out of the nest they came, half crawling, half falling down the side of the tree to the ground. This food business was a serious matter! And they were going to find some, somewhere!
     “We picked them up,” our young visitor explained. “They were not the least bit afraid. We fed them diluted milk with an eye dropper. Boy, how they went after it! I thought we would never get them filled. There were five of them at first, but one ran under the house. We couldn’t catch him to give him his dinner.”
     “Poor little fellow!” said Giny. “Perhaps you will get him later. Why, the creatures are hungry now. Look at this!”
     She had touched the nose of one of them with her little finger, and he tried desperately to nurse on it. That was hint enough for Giny. Away she went to warm some milk and round up some eye droppers. Duke, Bill and I endeavored to warm the squirming squirrelets with the

palms of our hands, telling them a thousand foolish things they didn’t understand.
     When the food was ready, Duke was the first to feed our new little charges. Later we often spoke of that impressive scene. There were qualities that touched our hearts as well as our hopes. The hair-trigger sense of humor was silenced for the moment, and we looked on another side of this young captain’s nature—his strong gentleness, kindliness and tenderness shown in the care of helpless creatures.
     Here he was, fresh from schooling in the savage arts of war, trained to combat an enemy who would if possible drive civilization and decency from human experience. Contrary to his natural inclinations, Duke had learned all the up-to-date tricks of viciousness, and he had strength to carry them out. Many times he had startled us with his agility. We had watched him climb trees with a speed and ease that might have been envied by a monkey. We saw him climb a rope hand over hand to a limb twenty feet from the ground, and jump down lightly. Unpretentiously he demonstrated how to disarm a man of a gun or knife, and how to defend himself if attacked from behind. While he was gentle with his demonstrations, I, as the victim, was glad no seriousness was involved.
     But strong as he was, no angel of mercy could have shown greater tenderness than he with those helpless and dependent little animals. This experience came to him as an opportunity to be himself for a moment, to indulge the incomparable joy of being kind.

     “Now come on, you fellows!” Duke was saying to the baby squirrels. He pulled back layers of cotton, revealing again the little huddle of tiny creatures. “Come on. Who’s first? Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo——”
     But Eeny crawled under Meeny, and Miney crawled over Eeny, and Mo crawled under the three of them. They kept crawling one under the other and squirming about until Duke said they looked like a mass of fur-covered fishworms. Without waiting to complete his count, he picked up one of them and brought him out for dinner. The tiny thing was badly frightened and struggled to be free. But he ceased his struggles and his eyes closed in contentment as the eye dropper came into play and he tasted the first swallow of warm milk. With quick realization that he was in the hands of a friend, he took hold of the dropper with his little front feet. Not until he had been fed six droppers full was he satisfied. Then he was placed back in his cotton-filled nest and sought a corner where he could indulge in a comfortable carefree nap.
     Eeny was now fed and contented. Captain Duke carried on his nursing duties. With hands trained to Ranger tactics, he fed Meeny, Miney and Mo until they were as wide as they were long. The four, now duly named and nourished, were tucked away in their bed, where they dropped off into squirrel dreamland, lullabyed by the final finger caresses and soft words of our soldier.
     Bill now took his leave with the promise that if he found the fifth squirrel he would bring him at once.

     As he started his motor it made a roar that was startling—but not as startling as Giny’s shriek that came at the same moment! Duke and I whirled around to see her racing off toward the cabin.
     “What is it?” we cried, running after her.
     “The pies! The pies!” she cried. “I can smell them!”
     I brought the bad news to Duke, who had returned to the basket of squirrels, feeling more concern about them than he did about the burning bakery. The pies were black as cinders, and the oven had enough deposit on it to account for a half day of scrubbing.
     “I always liked canned peaches anyway,” said Duke.

ALL through the night and into the next day the northwest gale blew with undiminished fury. Our weather report was from observation, for there was not an hour passed but that someone was awake and up—seeing if Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Mo were all right.
     We had brought them, basket and all, into the cabin and placed them before the fireplace. Duke fed them until they couldn’t wiggle. Giny tucked them snugly in their bed of cotton, and we put such a stack of wood on the fire that the only way another piece could have been added was to drop it through the chimney. Then we went to bed. However, it wasn’t more than a half-hour later when I heard Duke come in from the tent house where he loved to sleep. He tiptoed to the fireplace, and I heard him chuckle softly as he moved the basket farther away from the lively flames.
     “You might as well laugh out loud, Duke. We’re wide awake,” I called.
     Duke did. “I was afraid these little guys would be too warm,” he explained, “so I sneaked in to see. Do you suppose I ought to feed them again while I’m up?”
     “Good heavens, no! You couldn’t get more milk in them unless you forced it in with a tire pump!”

     “OK,” said Duke, a little disappointed, “but one of ‘em is looking at me as if he wanted something.”
     “He probably wants to be let alone so he can get some sleep.”
     “All right—guess I can take a hint!” Mingling a laugh with baby talk, Duke tucked the squirrel tots away again and placed the basket where he thought it should be. When he had gone to his tent, Giny went in to see how well his tucking had been done, and she moved the basket still farther away from the fire. A little later when the flames had died down, I went out and moved it closer. Duke came in with some wood a few minutes after that and built up the fire. Next Giny went out and moved the basket away. Then I moved it up. Then Duke moved it back. It went up and back, up and back, until those poor little things must have felt seasick. Three times during the night the captain warmed some milk and fed them. Just as the gray clouds were showing the first faint light of dawn, he tried it a fourth time. Giny and I had dropped off to sleep for a few minutes, and we were awakened by Duke’s knock on our door.
     “What is it, Duke?” I asked.
     “The squirrels are gone!” he exclaimed. “The basket is empty!”
     Now there was excitement. We dressed and joined Duke in a search that was frantic, though not long. Apparently the basket by the fire was too warm a nest for our orphans, and they had sought out places more to

their liking. Two of them were curled up together back of our encyclopedias, one was huddling behind the mantel clock, and the fourth had made himself more difficult to find by hiding in the sofa. They were restored to their basket, now far from the fire, and seemed right glad to be together again.
     “We aren’t going to keep those tykes confined anywhere for very long,” observed Duke, as we sat at the breakfast table. “Can you imagine them getting around that way? Why, one of them is hardly as large as a peanut!”
     A baby chickaree matures rapidly. Not for long is he a helpless dependent infant. In his world there is every reason for growing up in a hurry. There are too many enemies that can find his nest and cause trouble. He must be able to move quickly, and learn early the tricks that give him protection.
     But there were new events in the making. Giny glanced out the front windows and exclaimed excitedly, “Here comes Bill!”
     “And how!” Duke’s rejoinder had more meaning than is usual in that cliché. How that boat was cutting through the gray, foam-streaked waters! It leaped, reared and dipped like a bucking bronco. Sometimes it disappeared completely for an instant in the valley between two waves, only to come volplaning over the crest of the next one, slapping it as if in utter defiance. We could hear the motor snarling, and from the sound we knew that Bill had turned loose every ounce of power. It was an ani-

mated picture we looked on. Surely something had inspired even the boat itself to reach our island in the quickest possible time.
     We met Bill at our boathouse. He was breathless with excitement. “I got him!” he said. “But he’s a devil!”
     “You got whom?”
     “The other red squirrel, the fifth one. You are welcome to him. He kept us awake all night.”
     Number Five was a problem! He had more pep and impishness than all the other four combined. Our neighbors had caught him about dusk the night before, when the little fellow had come back to his nest. They had held him and fed him, but he did not welcome their aid. He struggled and bit and scratched in their hands. Only sweetened warm milk calmed him down, and that was just for a moment.
     “He isn’t bigger than a beetle,” declared Bill, looking at us with sleepy eyes, “but he was all over the place in nothing flat. He went over and under the furniture, climbed the curtains, jumped up in the cupboard, plowed into the sugar bowl, and tipped over everything. We put him in a cardboard box. He chewed his way out of it. We put him in a tin can. He made so much fuss we had to take him out. The only place he would spend the night was in a breadbox filled with a blanket.”
     Number Five had made his water journey confined in a stationery box. But he banged against the lid until it looked as if there were an internal earthquake.
     “He’s all yours!” Bill handed the box over with obvi-

ous relief. “Take him, and may God give you strength!”
     Bill went home at high speed to take a nap, while Giny, Duke and I took the rollicking Number Five to meet his brothers.
     “What do you call squirrel quintuplets?” I asked Duke.
     “Squints, I suppose.”
     “Squints it is!”
     Number Five recognized his relatives, but he was surely a bad influence on them. He plowed right into them, once he had been dumped into their basket. He bit one on the tail, a second on the ear, and scratched and mauled the others until he had them all in the same impish humor he was in. They fought, twisted and tumbled until the basket bounced about like an enlarged Mexican jumping bean.

     Number Five looked self-sufficient and almost mean. His expression seemed to say to us, “I can take care of myself. Just let me alone!” He hopped out of the basket, only to be caught and carried back in Duke’s large cupped

hands. Far from being appreciative of this attention, he bit Duke’s fingers. His baby teeth were not very effective, but sharp enough to make Duke glad to put him down.
     It was obvious that the basket would not be a suitable home for those lively youngsters for long. In fact, with the coming of Number Five, it was already inadequate. Out near Duke’s tent house stood a large wire cage that had served as the home of many animals through the years. Rack and Ruin the raccoons had used it for a few days; so had Salt and Pepper our pet porcupines, and bear cubs, beavers, birds and tiny deer, all under our protection until they grew out of the baby stage. Hastily we prepared this for the Squints. We filled it with newly cut brush, covered the floor with moss and logs, placed a cloth-filled wooden box in one corner as a nest. Then we draped a heavy canvas over it to break the wind.
     By midmorning the new accommodations were ready for the Squints. It was none too soon. They were simply boiling out of that basket. Giny had spent half her time retrieving them from various nooks and corners. Number Five had climbed up on a curtain rod and refused to come down. Only Duke could reach him, and he was bitten again for his trouble.
     There were a few minutes of calm while they were fed, after which they all went to sleep in a huddle in the basket. We seized on this opportunity to make final preparations for placing the little orphans in their new home.

Water and various kinds of food—peanuts, bread and corn meal—were provided in outlandish proportions, for Duke had charge of this. We inspected the cage for any breaks in the wire. Then we assembled five colors of paint. This was not only to be a transplanting operation for the squirrels, it was to be a christening. Each one must have identity, and be marked in such a way that we would recognize him.
     Giny brought the basket to the cage, and with great solemnity we began the ceremony. I uncovered the little rascals and reached for one of them, whereupon Number Five squealed defiantly and burrowed his way to the bottom of the heap.
     I lifted one, and touching him between the front shoulders with a small brush dipped in green paint, I said: “I dub thee Eeny!”
     With the aid of black paint, the next was christened Meeny. White paint designated Miney, and brown was for Mo.
     “And the-e-e-e-e I du-u-u-u-u-b——” I dragged out my ceremony while trying to catch the rampant Number Five. He squealed invectives entirely too severe for his age, and crawled wildly among rolls of cotton. When my hand caught up with him, he bit my finger.
     “Come out here, you little angel,” I insisted. “You are going to be christened if I have to put you in irons. And red paint it shall be, for where you are there is danger.”
     “But what are you going to call him?” asked Duke

“You have Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Mo—but who is he?”
     I was ready for this. Raising the squirming scamp high, I touched him with red paint, saying in tremulous voice, “And thee I dub—Stlll-Mo!”
     Duke went into a cackle spasm.

IN THE days that immediately followed the coming of the Squints we had no difficulty finding Captain Duke. He spent most of his time sitting in a corner of the squirrels’ cage playing with the funny little creatures. They accepted him as a part of their lives, and with absolute freedom ran all over him as if he were a tree. They perched on his head. They ran in and out of his trouser legs. They disappeared down the collar of his shirt and came out his sleeves. And not infrequently they went to sleep in his pockets. Often when we called him to lunch or dinner he would shout back some such message as “Can’t come now, I’m a dormitory for these young redskins.” He had rather miss a meal than move and disturb them.
     Duke had a wonderful time watching and studying the simple little animals. He forgot completely his spick-and-span uniform bearing the captain’s insignia. For him this was a leave indeed—his thought fully absorbed with the natural and real things of the world. The war, as purely a human invention as the implements of destruction employed in it, was far removed from this realm of plants and creatures, tides and seasons, all aris-

ing from a principle and power beyond human comprehension.
     We were careful not to recall the military thought to him. Only once did he speak of it, and then briefly. One evening we stood looking at Venus, the evening star, shining resplendently in the afterglow. The world had come to rest. The Squints were huddled in a furry red ball in one corner of their nest within the cage. Up toward the stars in the foliage of a white birch a robin uttered his sleepy song. Duke was silent and serious, his infectious good humor tucked away while his mind dwelt on deeper things.
     “And this is the world of reality!” he said quietly, as though thinking aloud. “The world that was, and is, and always will be!”
     He paused for a moment, and Giny and I made no reply. In the distance a barred owl deepened the silence with its weird cry.
     “How it lifts hope to know that this world of nature pays no attention to human bluff and blunder!” Duke continued. “It just goes on blooming, growing and unfolding. We can destroy some of its effects, but none of its causes. We can burn a forest, but we cannot prevent a new one from coming.”
     He paused again, and we stood in silence. It was one of those sacred moments when thought is realizing great truths, and one must be careful not to break the spell. It took a few more minutes of starlight and solitude to bring forth Duke’s next words.

     “After the First World War,” Duke began again, “someone asked General Pershing what was the most wonderful thing he saw in France. He replied that it was the way the larks sang during battles.”
     Duke stopped. We feared he had turned to a subject that would disquiet thought, but he knew well the ground on which he stood.
     “I hold to that!” the young soldier said. “I know what is ahead. The kind of training we have received tells us what to expect. But it helps to know that we cannot lose this.” He looked about at the nocturnal beauty. “It will be here when we return, and birds will sing even on the battlefields.”
     Giny slyly wiped away a tear, and I swallowed hard a lump in my throat that wouldn’t go down. But Duke laughed a little. He would laugh whenever it would help matters.
     “It seems to me like going into a dream voluntarily,” he went on. “It is a different kind of a dream. Most dreams just happen to you. But this dream we choose, and we deliberately walk right into it. I dread it, and frankly I am afraid—but I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Because it is our dream, and we must see it through. It is a bad dream, like the kind we have in sleep when we have eaten something indigestible. Well, we have thought something that is indigestible, we human beings have. We have been feasting on selfishness and hate. No wonder such a nightmare has been conjured up. But since I have been here where the real

world just keeps rolling on, I know that all this other is just a kind of dream. And when it is over and we all awake again—this will be just as it is now. There will be robins singing, stars sparkling, trees growing, solitude and peace still in the world—yes, and baby red squirrels, too!”
     That little speech presented the true character of our soldier. Everyone is a philosopher, for everyone must have his notion of life and duty. Duke had formed his. The great tragedy of human experience—war—was to him a dream taking place in ignorance and evil thinking. He would not flatter it by calling it real. While toying with the tiny squirrels so lightheartedly, he had been finishing his conviction. This changing but unchangeable, ever different, ever the same world of nature was his parable. For here were things that last, things that are true, things that antedate and outlast human mistakes and misery.
     “And I believe I know what real peace would be,” Duke continued, as we walked toward the cabin. “It doesn’t make peace just to stop fighting, though it helps. And there is more to it than just being here where it is quiet and beautiful, though that helps too. Once in a while I have reached the place where peace was so close at hand that I knew where to seek it at least. It is when I forget myself, and as someone said, ‘look through nature to nature’s God.’”
     We had paused for a moment where a little break in the trees let us look toward the northern horizon. North-

em lights were glowing about the North Star. Several meteors streaked the heavens as we watched.
     “Yes.” Duke picked up his thought. “You don’t really find peace until you get close to Him—some way, somehow—I wish I knew.”

THE paint spots which had been placed on the Squints for identification purposes faded and disappeared rather soon. But they lasted long enough to let us learn the characteristics of each squirrel so that we could know one from the other. You do not identify animals just by some aspect any more than you do people. It is the whole being of the creature that you recognize. You know the way he walks, moves, calls, and what he is most apt to do. You learn his likes and dislikes, his disposition, his habits—in fact, you know him so well you recognize him without knowing just how you do it.
     Before Duke's leave had ended, he knew Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo and Still-Mo so well he could identify them in the dark. At least he claimed he could. When we asked for proof, he resorted to paraphrasing an old gag:
     “Well,” he said, “in the dark I put my finger in Eeny's mouth, and if Miney bites me, it is Still-Mo. On the other hand, if Meeny nestles up to my hand it is Eeeny, unless Still-Mo doesn't do anything—then I know it is Mo.”
     We couldn't argue with that, for we wouldn't know where to begin.

     Duke kept a diary of the Squints as long as he was there. He recorded how rapidly they grew, and how their instincts and natural ways of living began to appear. The little fellows obviously knew they were squirrels, and were right proud of the fact. With amazing ability they climbed about the small trees and branches that had been placed in their cage. They gathered little bits of bark and leaves from the floor to make play nests of their own in selected spots. To sharpen their teeth and strengthen their jaws, they chewed on twigs and branches. They chattered after the manner of their kind, sounding like a boy giving a vocal imitation of a machine gun. Within a week they had taken themselves off their milk diet. It was infantile food and might be all right for youngsters, but they were now over a month old and they would have no more of it! Instead, they chewed viciously at peanuts and bread crusts, and took well to the buds, grasses, cabbage and carrots we gave them. Immediately they began storing food, squirrel-fashion, hiding it in corners and crotches and under leaves.
     Duke sat in the cage quietly for a long time one day, and then broke into a cackle spasm. Giny and I went running to find out what the latest joke was. The chickarees had kept Duke giggling much of the time. Now we found him running his fingers through his long curly hair, searching for peanuts, laughing the while. Still-Mo, it seemed, had decided that would be a mighty fine place to store some food for the future. So while Duke had held perfectly still watching the operation, the saucy

squirrel made trip after trip from his head to the pan of food and back, each time bringing a nut and concealing it among the curls.

     “I held still,” said Duke, “until the rascal began bringing bread crumbs and pine cones, and then I decided he had gone far enough.”
     He combed nine peanuts out of his hair, while Still-Mo crouched in a corner and chattered his disapproval.
     As with all animals, these five little fellows were strictly individual. Duke was a good observer, and his diary of

the Squints recorded traits that we could recognize as long as they remained under our observation.
     Eeny, who wore the green paint, was the gentle one, the natural pet, the lamb. She was the only female of the family but certainly no weakling. In childish squabbles with her four brothers she held her own, and they respected her. But she was always the approachable one. When Duke crawled into the cage, it was Eeny who first came to him. If the morning were cool, she might work her way into a pocket, lie contentedly in his big cupped hands, or nestle up to his neck.
     Red squirrels by nature are wary creatures and avoid intimate friendships with human beings. Eeny came close to breaking this rule. Even when the day came for the Squints to burst out of their cage and take up life in the woods, this little one was hesitant. Continually she reached back to us, and sometimes acted as if she wished we would learn to climb trees and live on a woods diet so we could be together more. Many of her little baby friendly habits with us were continued until she was a veteran forest squirrel.
     Eeny's expression was mild and affectionate. That is not always true of her kind. A red squirrel lives in a belligerent world, and likes it. He banters and argues with all the creatures about him, asks no favors, and gives none. Hence he looks saucy, and is. But Eeny wore a somewhat kindly expression. Her sharp little eyes would look at us with lively interest written in them, but no hostility. Sometimes when Duke was stroking the little creature, 

though her back was hardly large enough to give one good rub, she would close her eyes in obvious contentment.
     Unquestionably Eeny was Duke's favorite. “This is my pal,” our captain would say as he reached down to pick up half a handful of the little creature. “She and I have lots of secrets. We know all the answers, don't we, old top?” And tiny little “old top” winked as if she agreed with all that had been said.
     Meeny was appropriately named. No girl-teasing, hair-pulling, spitball-shooting, teacher-baiting grammarschool boy ever thought up more meanness than he. He wore the black paint, but not for long. He figured out how to scratch or rub it off on the wires of his cage. Surely he was a smart little scamp, along with his deviltry. He was the first one to figure out the various problems Duke continually gave the youngsters. It was Meeny who first learned that Duke carried peanuts in various pockets, and he mastered the art of getting them. But he never misrepresented his motive. He went into those pockets for the sole purpose of obtaining food, and there was no pretense at making it a friendly gesture. Eeny would enter a pocket anyway, liked to stay there, and would welcome the hand that reached in to her. Not so with Meeny. If there was no food, there was no reason to be there. Out he would come and tell Duke a few things in saucy squirrel talk. His disposition showed in every move. He was seldom still, even for a moment. Always he acted like a runner toeing the mark while he

waits for the starter's gun. His tail frisked about and his head jerked, and he snapped out little chirps right and left as he stood always on a tension. Duke had many a laugh about Meeny.
     “I know people like him,” he said. “They live on edge as if the whole world were just waiting to take a bite at them, always try to outsmart someone, and are hardly willing to come close enough to shake hands. They seem to have the notion that everyone is trying to do them out of something and they want to do others first. They just bring trouble on themselves, for you can't trust a fellow who won't trust you.”
     One day I heard Duke talking to Meeny in a most confidential way. It was futile, of course, for Meeny had not the slightest notion what all that wordy sound meant. But the conversation was worth while, for Duke was clearing up his own thoughts. Maybe that is one of the greatest benefits of animal friends. They help us think things out.
     “Meeny,” Duke was saying in tones patient and kindly, “you're just smart enough that you ought to be a little bit smarter.”
     Meeny was perched on the top of the nest house in the cage looking right at Duke with anything but a friendly attitude. His little feet gripped the boards tensely, his tail circled over his back, and he made small nervous steps constantly as if practicing his getaway.
     “Take it easy,” Duke went on. “No one is going to hurt you or take anything from you. If you were as smart as 

you think you are, you would know that. A fellow doesn't know very much as long as he thinks the world is all against him—because it isn't true. But don't you understand we can't be kind to you unless you will let us? You don't take in the goodness that is all around you. You're fighting with your own funny ideas all the time. You cause the very things you are afraid of. Come on now, relax! The rest of us are not as bad as you think we are! Give us a chance to be nice to you. Here . . . here's a peanut just to prove I mean it.” 
     Meeny advanced one nervous, quick step after another toward the peanut. You would have thought he was snatching it from the very gates of Hades. When his nose touched it, he grabbed it with all the bad manners he could muster, and raced to a far corner of the cage where he indulged in a chatter that sounded like anything but gratitude or polite conversation.
     “I give up,” said Duke. “Meeny, you dumb cluck! I guess you'll always be that way.”
     Miney was a little male, but he had all the vanity that is supposed to belong to the other sex. He primped and posed and fussed at his appearance continually. “Don't ever put a mirror in there,” warned Duke, “for that little guy could starve to death looking at himself.” It was Miney whom we first saw when we approached the cage. He was always in some prominent spot, as if waiting to be discovered and admired. Generally he was primping. He washed his face until Duke was afraid he would wear it out. He combed out his bright red fur, and was

especially particular about keeping his tail fluffy. Apparently he approved of the touch of white paint that crowned his shoulders, for he made no effort to scrape it off. Possibly he thought it was the prevailing fashion, to be endured no matter what the discomfort. Miney was not quite such a pet as Eeny, but certainly he was more approachable than Meeny. He enjoyed being petted, but immediately after he would straighten out any misplaced hairs.
     Mo was exactly the opposite of Miney. The brown paint on his back became black with his rolling and crawling around. Even in that clean cage he was able to find enough dirt to smear up his face. Time and again we heard Duke break into a laugh at Mo's appearance. There was always something wrong—a black streak across his mouth, a dirty spot over one eye, his tail with no two hairs in the same direction, his feet coated with dust he found in corners. But his disposition was good, and Duke adored him.
     “If you were a human being, Mo,” he said, “you would probably be one of those much-loved small-town bums. You would live in a little shack all by yourself, and do little jobs around just earning enough to keep from being hungry. You would smile at everyone, and be considered a little queer. School kids would shout at you, know you by your first name, and like you. People would say you were shiftless and no good—but they would always agree that you had a heart of gold. You wouldn't take a bath often, your hair would never be combed, your clothes 

would be ragged, and your house disorderly. But because you didn't hate anyone, no one would hate you. A small town wouldn't be complete without at least one adorable bum, and I guess our squirrel town couldn't get along without one either.”
     Mo just blinked and looked up at Duke, smiling—if a squirrel can smile. Duke picked him up and put him in his pocket. Mo settled down contentedly. Duke put him on his shoulder. Mo settled there too. Anywhere was all right—it took too much energy to be fussy.
     Still-Mo was the carefree, adventurous type. He owned the world, and felt that he must see it all. The red paint vanished from his shoulders within a few hours, due to his intense activity. The cage was too small for him from the day he was put in it. He explored every corner looking for a way out. He was not friendly like Eeeny, but certainly not fearful like Meeny. He would run at Duke as quickly as he would run away from him. He was absolutely disrespectful to the primping Miney, and scolded Mo for his indolence. Still-Mo was like the boy who wants to put on long pants the moment he is through with the three-cornered kind; who reads Wild West novels before he learns to spell, and heads out there as soon as he can walk across a room. He looked like that. Still-Mo always gave the impression that he was just on the point of going somewhere. He did not crouch like Meeny, and there was no fear in his attitude. He stood erect but ready, his ears forward while his eyes searched for something exciting to do.

     “There's a fellow in my outfit I am going to call Still-Mo,” said Duke. “He was just born to be an adventurer; joined our outfit because it is the most—that is, we are the first to land. You never know where he will be or what he will do next, except that it will be OK. He won't let anything bind or restrain him. He's just a little embodied spirit of liberty. Yes sir, I am going to call him Still-Mo, Lieutenant Still-Mo—he'll get a kick out of being named after a squirrel.”
     Duke thought into the distance for a moment, and added with a smile and a shake of his head, “The rascal!”
     But that little expression, said of one strong, brave man by another, told of a friendship richly deep and important.
     The Squints were becoming impatient with their cage. They wanted the great big outside world they could see through the wires. We hesitated to turn them loose. There were hawks, owls, weasels and eagles out there, and a nice tender baby red squirrel would be to them like a taste of candy. But the little fellows wanted none of our coddling. Still-Mo had begun chewing futilely but determinedly at the wire. Mo was trying to burrow into the floor. Meeny and Miney were poking their little noses through the wire mesh. Even the complacent little Eeny chattered and reached for liberty.
     One morning we heard Duke call to us for assistance. He had gone down to the squirrel cage. “Jail break!” he cried. “Jail break!”

     We ran down and found Duke high in a cedar tree, reaching out to where Eeny was perched on a limb. “They are all out somewhere,” he called down breathlessly. “When I opened the cage to get in, they all ran out. It was a put-up job, a planned jail break. They ran in five directions. I grabbed at all of them—and didn't get one!”
     By this time he had reached Eeny, who docilely permitted herself to be picked up and placed in a pocket. Duke brought her down and put her back in the cage.
     The others were so active we had no trouble seeing them, but catching them was another matter. Still-Mo was climbing a white cedar. High from the ground he looked like a high-powered caterpillar. Meeny was up a white pine, and the way he raced about the branches made us shudder. Mo was poking his head out from under the cage and, of course, his face was dirty. Calling him “dirty snoot,” Duke picked him up and returned him to the cage. Giny fetched a great outlay of food and placed it in the cage as a reward for coming home. It was mealtime at that, and before long we had recaptured all but Still-Mo. He was racing about the foliage in high glee, apparently trying to demonstrate to us that he was a fully grown red squirrel, quite capable of taking care of himself.
     It was nearly a half-hour later when I succeeded in getting Still-Mo to come down to where I was offering him a tempting peanut. No doubt he was hungry after all his exertion, and yet he was cautious. This liberty

was grand, and he did not want to lose it. A step at a time, and with many a little excited chirp, he came within my reach. While he was preoccupied with the taste of the peanut, I caught him and held him firmly in my hands. He bit me, but one must be ready to endure this occasionally in handling animals. I carried the objecting red squirrel over to the cage as Duke opened the door.
     And now came an experience that I cannot even write without cringing with a peculiar sensation of pain and coating myself with goose-pimples. It isn't the kind of pain that comes of your own hurt, but rather the feeling that results when you think of hurting something or someone else you do not want to harm.
     Still-Mo put up new and more successful struggles when he saw the open cage. That jail was out as far as he was concerned. He struggled, bit, scratched, squealed his indignation, and finally succeeded in filtering through my fingers. He fell to the ground, landing right beside the cage.
     I grabbed wildly—and oh, I wish I hadn't! I caught hold of the very end of his tail just as he was darting under the cage. For an instant—just an instant—I held on. If I had let go I would have saved myself all this strange pain and these goose-pimples that haunt me as I write. Almost immediately I heard a scolding chatter near my head. There, on the side of a small hemlock tree, was Still-Mo—and I still had his tail—or at least half of it—in my hand!
     A shudder went over me as I realized what had hap-

pened. There had been no struggle, no jerk; apparently Still-Mo had not fastened his clothes on very well that morning. But there was no use dodging the horrible fact—I had partly skinned him alive! With a groan I lifted my unwanted souvenir of skin and fur and showed it to Giny and Duke. They joined me in silent shuddering.
     The least concerned of all was Still-Mo. He paid no attention to his tail, which now consisted of about two inches of fur and four inches of long, stiff, white threadlike bone. Obviously it did not hurt him much. Maybe squirrels and chipmunks are prepared to lose their tails easily. Some nature students think they are, and certainly many of the little creatures are seen with tails abbreviated. It is possible that since this part would be the first reached by pursuing enemies, they have evolved a system of giving up some of it without too severe consequences.
     I am sure the whole thing hurt us more than it did Still-Mo. He went racing away, glad to pay any price for his liberty. Never again did he go into the cage. Within several days the exposed bony part of his tail had disappeared. I do not know whether he bit it off, or it dried up and broke off. Probably he got rid of it himself and forgot the entire matter. I never have forgotten it. To this day, when I think of the way he looked on that tree while I knelt there holding the freshly snatched skin in my hand, I suffer and tense up the way some people do when they hear metal scrape on glass.
     This experience ended the cage stage of our Squints. Still-Mo was the martyr who had suffered and bled for 

the liberty of his people. We cut a squirrel-sized hole in the wire at the bottom of the cage, so that they could go and come as they pleased. Food was kept in the cage for some time, but our tiny pets had little to do with it. Their independent lives had begun.

THE morning after the jail break of the Squints, there was a different spirit in our group. It was the day of which we had said little, and which we would have delayed coming if we could. Duke's manner was changed. His face still lighted with good humor, and his conversation dealt with the usual pleasantries. But there were demanding matters at hand, and occasionally his brow wrinkled as ideas presented themselves for his attention.
     “Duke, my boy,” I said, walking up to his chair and laying my hand on his shoulder—sitting down he was almost as tall as I was standing—“Duke—this is it!”
     “Yes,” he said seriously, though he could not refrain from a little laugh, “yes, this is it. We move up today.”
     “Do you dread going, lad?” I asked. We had avoided talking of the time when his leave would end, and war would confront him. But it was here now, and must be faced.
     “No, I mean it when I say I do not.” We knew he spoke the truth. “For pleasure I would not choose the experience before me, certainly. But there is a job to be done, a job that is partly mine. I am ready now to be at it.”
     “And no bitterness?” I asked.

     He was thoughtful for a moment. “No bitterness!” he said with conviction. “Still-Mo taught me that. He took no time to lay blame or curse his luck when misfortune came to him. It was liberty he wanted, and it was all that mattered. He could have lost the joy of liberty had he stopped to count the cost. Last night the picture was clear to me. The human race is in a cage, imprisoned by its own ignorance. All about us is a world rich in beauty and natural loveliness. Some of us can see beyond the wires of tangled thinking that hold us in. We see how happy and fine the race could be, outside! We have to lead in a break for this liberty. And even if some of us are hurt in the attempt, the hurts themselves may help bring freedom to all.” 
     “I don't know just what your parable makes me,” I laughed, shuddering a little as I recalled that I had pinched the tail off Still-Mo. “Yet I like it. Look out in that forest, Duke. There isn't a creature living but would rather die than surrender liberty. Freedom is a primitive instinct in nature. Something in our constitutions will never let us be contented until all men are free. We could not be satisfied otherwise even if we would. And I guess if we do leave strips of our hides behind us in our struggles, it is worth the price.” 
     We left Duke to himself very much that day. He seemed to want to be alone with nature. He scouted the island until he had located and fed the Squints. We heard him laughing and talking to them. Chipmunks came in for attention, climbing all over him while he 

donated peanuts by the handful to their insatiable appetites. Salt and Pepper arrived for a romp, and Sausage amused him with another demonstration of her chewing. Blooey entered the scene, eying the red squirrels with suspicion and probably conjuring up plans for making their lives miserable. 
     Duke put out in a canoe and cruised along the shores. We saw him land and disappear up a trail. An hour later he returned and took up his canoeing again. Apparently he was gathering thoughts into his mind to carry away as much of this loved experience as he could. 
     Dinnertime came, and Duke presented himself in uniform. His boyishness was gone, and he reflected the dignity of his rank and the seriousness of his purpose. In that dinner Giny had incorporated every favorite dish of our soldier guest. Soon afterward it was time to go, and we carried Duke's baggage to the boathouse. 
     “Just a moment,” he said, holding up a finger. “Forgot something.” He ran back toward the cabin. He was gone a few minutes, and then returned in a great hurry. 
     “Now let's get started. I mustn't miss that train.” He grabbed his suitcase and started to step into the boat. My suspicions were aroused. 
     “No you don't, young fellow!” I said, looking at him knowingly. “Just put that suitcase down.” 
     “Why?” he said, trying to look innocent. “You wouldn't want me to miss the train, would you?” 
     “Regardless of the train, there is nothing in the military manual that permits an officer to do kidnaping,” I said 

relentlessly. “You are acting mighty suspicious, Captain, and I'd like to take a look at your pockets before you go.”
     There was a peculiar bulge in each side pocket of his jacket, and occasionally the bulges wiggled a little. “OK!” he said, resignedly. “If that's the way you're going to treat me, here you are.”
     He reached in one pocket and drew out Mo. The little fellow looked and acted as if he wouldn't mind going along. He sat on the ground where Duke placed him, making no effort to run.
     “Old dirty puss!” ejaculated Duke. “You'd never pass inspection that way, young fellow. Now,” he said, turning to me, “may we go?”
     “Not on your life!” I said firmly. “Come on, cough up—you have some more sins to confess.”
     Duke looked at me pleadingly for a moment, and then reluctantly reached into another pocket and pulled out Eeny! He took his little favorite over to a near-by tree, and after petting her a moment, placed her on a limb.

     “Guess you can't go, old top,” he said to the tiny squirrel. “But you wait for me now. I'm going to need you again one of these days.” 
     I searched Duke, but he had no more squirrels. “I couldn't find the others,” he said in needless explanation. 
     From the hour of his coming, we had been in agreement with Duke that there should be no sorrow at parting. Good-by should be said only in the original meaning of the words. Accordingly as he stepped on the train at the tiny village eleven miles from our Sanctuary, Giny and I said, “God be with you, Duke!” 
     “God be with you, my friends,” he replied with a strong smile. 

DO ANIMALS know the secret of sympathy?
     It has seemed to me that they do. In my childhood there was a big, homely mongrel named Sport who lived at my grandfather's farm. My summers were spent at this country home, and while old Sport lived he was the most important part of these happy adventures. Through the barefoot days that made up those vacations, old Sport and I were inseparable. He trailed behind me through the stubble fields, while I carried a stick for a gun and blazed away in imagination at desperadoes and fierce beasts. He

went with me to the old swimming hole, and guarded my clothes while I plunged into water swarming with leeches. Then he helped me pull off these unpleasant parasites when I came out. He sat beside me at the table to receive little bites I sneaked to him, and at night he curled up on my bed, contrary to parental orders that were never meant to be obeyed.
     Then inevitably would come the worst calamity I knew in those childish years. I would have to leave this land of open fields, rabbits, squirrels, horses, cows, birds, and go back to a city school. Sometimes it seemed more than I could stand. There were tears in my heart, and in my eyes. Old Sport never left me then. Likely he did not understand the problem, but he knew that his friend was unhappy and that was enough. If he could heal the hurt by devotion and love, he wanted to do so. Wherever I paused for a moment, he pressed against me, his ears laid back, his eyes looking right into mine, trying to tell me he would bite the pants off anything that bothered me if I would just let him know what it was. If I sat down he would crawl into my lap, whining a little in his efforts to talk a language I could understand. Old Sport knew the healing effect of strong sympathy. It helped much with those childish pains to put my arms around his neck and just feel that he cared.
     In later years there was a neighbor dog named Count who took a fancy to me. It was one of those spontaneous friendships that cannot be wholly explained. From the moment I saw that dog I felt an attachment to him, and

he obviously felt the same for me. During the months we lived as neighbors, I met with the loss of a loved one. Count took the matter of consolation on his own shoulders. He was such a little fellow, with one ear that stood up and another that turned down. His tail was so sharply curled it looked as if it would lift his hind feet off the ground. He had a brown spot over one eye, and he laughed all the time. I never saw another dog mind other people's business as much as he did. But he knew every mood of mine. When I was happy, he was happy. When I was disturbed, he looked the part more than I. 
     I shall never forget him the hour sorrow came to me. He found a door open and entered the house, coming to where I sat in a chair trying to straighten out my thoughts. Several little whines made me look down at him. Then he came crawling on his stomach across the floor to my feet, where he lay licking my shoes. If eyes can talk, his spoke volumes. I reached down and lifted him to my lap. With a desperate little whine he put his front paws on my shoulders and laid his head against my neck. There he stayed for half an hour, pressing against me hard as if he were trying to get closer. I stroked his back and finally whispered, “Count, with such love as this in the world, no sorrow can last long!” 
     At one time when there were many business worries, I had a cat that proved a most devoted creature. When matters were bad, I formed the habit of pacing the floor to relieve the tension. No reason for it. I guess I had seen a picture of Napoleon doing it and thought I should do 

likewise. The cat would trail right at my heels, looking up at me and calling to make me see the folly of such carryings-on. If I did not pause and pick her up, she would jump up in a chair, and from there into my arms. She would never leave me, nor stop her pleading, until I sat down and smiled. Then she would purr until she could have been heard fifty yards away. 
     It was most apparent to us that Salt and Pepper had taken it on themselves to cheer us up after Duke had left. While the two funny porkies had always been devoted, at this time they became extremely affectionate. Salt, who had been my particular pal, wanted to be with me constantly. He took it for granted that his attentions were welcome. If I went to my typewriter to work, he sat on the window sill outside and billed and cooed. If I stepped out the door, he came up to me at once, talking in the softest little grunts. He did not attempt to play, as at other times. Not once did he bite, scratch or raise his quills at me, as generally happened when we were both in high spirits. Whenever possible he climbed to my shoulder, where he would whisper his condolences in my ear in the quietest, most appealing voice I have ever heard a porky use. 
     Giny was experiencing the same attention from the two porcupines, but particularly from Pepper. This little creature, generally the more reserved of the two, insisted on being in Giny's arms much of the time. Like Salt, she dealt in soft little talk of porky poetry. What made their behavior more startling still was that for some time they 

had been drifting away from us. They were taking more and more to the woods. But there could be no question about it, something was influencing them. My conviction is that they definitely felt our need of sympathy and companionshp. 
     One seeks old friends when one's heart is heavy. The evening after Duke had left I went over a familiar trail to look for Inky, my first porcupine pet. Inky would now be about six years old, half the porcupine's usual life. His home had always been the heavy forest directly opposite our island on the mainland. The summer before I had found him fairly often. But this year he had not put in an appearance. Several times I had walked the trails at night calling for him. Only the murmur of insects answered me. There was evidence of porcupines visiting the salt lick we had prepared for Inky, but this might be Salt and Pepper, or one of the nameless porkies that dwell in these woods. I looked for him again this lonely evening, hoping that the spirit of sympathy might touch his heart and he would come seeking me. But it was expecting too much. My old porky friend did not respond. Whether he had moved away, something had happened to him, or he had forgotten me, I could not know. 
     When I returned to the island, Salt met me at the landing. His ardor was undiminished, and he talked to me again in those soft, soothing tones. 
     “Little porky,” I said, petting him as he lay quietly over my arm, “the thing you are showing me tonight is our hope in this world. There is something greater than 

human trials, that overflows them and heals them. You have it, old pal, and you are using it. That you should behave this way is new evidence that there is more to life than the eye can see. My faith rests on what makes a simple little porcupine like you show so much love. This is greater power than bursting bombs. There, there, my buddy, I won't be heavy of spirit any more. These days are not easy, but you point to the guiding star that will lead us through them if we will but be faithful.”
     Giny had prepared a midnight lunch, and the cabin was lighted with cheer as I returned. She had been thinking too, thoughts provoked by the strange behavior of those two sympathetic porcupines.
     The world was not made for loneliness and sadness. Everything works against heaviness of thought. The songs and scenes of nature demand of us good cheer, whatever our lot may be. The world carries on, and whistles as it goes. Giny and I caught the spirit and went about our work. Whatever else was given us to do during these times, being of good cheer was a primary duty.
     The porkies looked us over and decided we had taken hold of ourselves once more. They grunted a little farewell, and swam away about their secret business in the great forest beyond.