,--no," said Rollo; "but then a real live squirrel is a different
thing. Besides, you know, if I get tired of him, I need not play with
him then."

"No, but a real live thing must be fed every day, and _that_ you would
find a great trouble. And then you would sometimes forget it, and the
poor fellow would be half starved."

"O no," said Rollo; "I am sure I should not forget it."

"Did you remember your reading-lesson this morning?"

"Why,--no," said Rollo, looking a little confused. "But I am sure I
should not forget to feed a squirrel if I had one."

"You don't know as much as I thought you did," replied Jonas.

"Why?"

"I thought you knew more about yourself than to suppose you could be
trusted to do any thing regularly every day. Why, you would not remember
to wash your own face every morning, if your mother did not remind you.
The squirrel is almost as fit to take care of you in your wigwam, as you
are to take care of him in a cage."

Rollo felt a little ashamed of his boasting, for he knew that what Jonas
said was true. Jonas said, finally, "However, we will try to catch him;
but I cannot promise that I shall let you keep him in a cage. It will be
bad enough for him to be shut up all night in the box trap, but I can
pay him for that the next day in corn."

So Jonas brought down the box trap that night. It was a long box, about
as big as a cricket, with a tall, pointed back, which looked like a
steeple; so Rollo called it the steeple trap. It was so made that if the
squirrel should go in, and begin to nibble some corn, which they were
going to put in there, it would make the cover come down and shut him
in. They fixed the trap on the end of the log, and Jonas observed, as
he sat on the log, that he could see the barn chamber window through a
little opening among the trees. Of course he knew that from the barn
chamber window he could see the trap, though it would be too far off to
see it plain.

THE WAY TO LOSE A SQUIRREL

Early the next morning, James came over to learn whether they had caught
the squirrel; and he and Rollo wanted Jonas to go down with them and
see. Jonas said he could not go down then very well, but if he would go
and ask his father to lend him his spy-glass, he could tell without
going down.

Now Jonas had been a very faithful and obedient boy, ever since he came
to live with Rollo's father. He had some great faults when he first
came, but he had cured himself of them, and he wa