m the cat. I remembered how it made
straight toward me, as if asking me for protection from its enemy,
which only a tame squirrel would do; and I proposed, when breakfast
was over, that we should go out and help in the search.

Little Jack Tompkins stood under the beech trees, looking with
tear-stained face up into the branches. Suddenly I saw his face
brighten, and he called out, "I see un, ma'am; I see un! If so be no
one warn't by, I be sure he'd come to I."

I need not say we retreated to a distance; then Jack called up the
tree in a loud whisper, "Billee, Billee!" and in a minute down came
the little creature on to his shoulder. I can tell you Jack was a
happier child than he had been when he came into the garden. And when
I told him what a narrow escape "Billee" had had from the cat, he
said, "It would be hard if a cat eat he, for our old puss brought he
up with her own kits." Then he told us how the squirrel, when a tiny
thing, had dropped out of its nest and been found by him lying almost
dead at the foot of a tree, and how he had carried it home and tried
whether pussy would adopt it as one of her own kittens. The cat was
kind; the squirrel throve under her motherly care, and became Jack's
pet and companion.

Now, children, in this instance it was all very well to keep a tame
squirrel. "Billee" seemed happy leading the life he was accustomed to;
he had been fed and cared for by human beings from his infancy, and
might be as incapable of finding food and managing for himself in a
wild state as a poor canary would be if let loose from its cage. But
generally it is cruel to imprison little wild birds and animals who
have known the enjoyment of liberty.

[Illustration: THE SQUIRREL.]

PUPPET.

Puppet had two occupations. She had also a guitar and a half-bushel
basket. These things were her capital--her stock in trade.

The guitar belonged to one of her occupations, the half-bushel basket
to the other.

In consideration of her first employment, she might have been called a
street guitarist. In consideration of her second, she might have been
called a beggar--a broken-bits beggar.

Puppet would have been considered, among lawyers, "shrewd;" or, at a
mothers' meeting, "cunning;" or, among business men, "sharp." That is
to say, she knew a thing or two. She knew that being able to sing no
songs was a disadvantage to her first occupation, as a large hole,
half way up her basket, was an advantage to he