beech-trees, the thread fell on the grass, and
he took this as a sign that he should lie down too, and so he did,
grateful for the rest. He ate some of his cake, and drank from a clear
spring beside him, and feasted on wild strawberries which grew in
abundance all round him. He then stretched himself on his back among
soft moss, and looked up through the branches of the gigantic tree, and
saw with delight the sunlight speckling the emerald green leaves and
brown bark with touches of silver, and, far up, the deep blue sky with
white clouds reposing on it, like snowy islands on a blue ocean; and he
watched the squirrels, with their bushy tails, as they ran up the tree,
and jumped from branch to branch, and sported among the leaves, until he
fell into a sort of pleasant day-dream, and felt so happy, he hardly
knew why. As he lay here, he thought he heard, in his half-waking dream,
a little squirrel sing a song. Was it not his own heart, now so glad
because doing what was right, which was singing? This was the song which
he thought he heard:--

"I'm a merry, merry squirrel,
All day I leap and whirl,
Through my home in the old beech-tree;
If you chase me, I will run
In the shade and in the sun,
But you never, never can catch me!
For round a bough I'll creep,
Playing hide-and-seek so sly,
Or through the leaves bo-peep,
With my little shining eye.
Ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha!

"Up and down I run and frisk,
With my bushy tail to whisk
All who mope in the old beech-trees;
How droll to see the owl,
As I make him wink and scowl,
When his sleepy, sleepy head I tease!
And I waken up the bat,
Who flies off with a scream,
For he thinks that I'm the cat
Pouncing on him in his dream.
Ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha!

"Through all the summer long
I never want a song,
From my birds in the old beech-trees;
I have singers all the night,
And, with the morning bright,
Come my busy humming fat brown bees.
When I've nothing else to do,
With the nursing birds I sit,
And we laugh at the cuckoo
A-cuckooing to her tit!
Ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha!

"When winter comes with snow,
And its cruel tempests blow
All the leaves from my old beech-trees;
Then beside the wren and mouse
I furn