Yet they could not have been more entirely squirrel had their own squirrel mother nurtured them.  Calico’s milk and love went all to cat in her own kittens, and all to squirrel in these that she adopted.  No single hair of theirs turned from its squirrel-gray to any one of Calico’s three colors; no single squirrel trait became the least bit catlike.

Indeed, as soon as the squirrels could run about they forsook the clumsy-footed kittens under the stove and scampered up back of the hot-water tank, where they built a nest.  Whenever Calico entered the kitchen purring, out would pop their heads, and down they would come, understanding the mother language as well as the kittens, and usually beating the kittens to the mother’s side.

So far from teaching them to climb and build nests behind water-tanks, their foster-mother never got over her astonishment at it.  All they needed from her, all they needed and would have received from their own squirrel mother, was nourishment and protection until their teeth and legs grew strong.  Wits were born with them; experience was sure to come to them; and with wits and experience there is nothing known among squirrels of their kind that these two would not learn for themselves.

And there was not much known to squirrels that these two did not know, apparently without even learning.  As they grew in size they increased exceedingly in naughtiness, and were banished shortly from the kitchen to an ell or back woodshed.  They celebrated this distinction by dropping some hickory-nuts into a rubber boot hanging on the wall, and then gnawing a hole through the toe of the boot in order to extract the hidden nuts.  Was it mischief that led them to gnaw through rather than go down the top?  Or did something get stuffed into the top of the boot after the nuts were dropped in?  And did the squirrels remember that the nuts were in there, or did they smell them through the rubber?

One woodshed is big enough only for two squirrels.  The family moved everything out but the wood, and the squirrels took possession for the winter.  Their first nest had been built behind the hot-water tank.  They knew how to build without any teaching.  But knowing how is not all there is to know about building; knowing where is very important, and this they had to learn.

Immediately on coming to the woodshed the squirrels began their winter nest, a big, bulky, newspaper affair, which they placed up in the northwest corner of the shed directly under the shingles.  Here they slept till late in the fall.  This was the shaded side and the most exposed corner of the whole house; but all went well until one night when the weather suddenly turned very cold.  A strong wind blew from the northwest hard upon the squirrels’ nest.

The next day there was great activity in the woodshed—­a scampering of lively feet, that began early in the morning and continued far toward noon.  The squirrels were moving.  They gathered up their newspaper nest and carried it—­diagonally—­across the shed from the shaded northwest to the sunny southeast corner, where they rebuilt and slept snug throughout the winter.