Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-09-26
.BUSH-TA|L AND SPy-EM
OR THE TALE Of A NUT
A Triple Play Made Beneath the
Elms on the Lawn of the
White House.

Old Gray-back Bit-of- Install gone.
squirrel tenant of the top apartment in
one of the big elm trees of the " hits
House grounds hotioM hoored aud
walled with cement by the tree sur
geon and made comfortable with tho
most approved squirrel upholstery
has enjoyed full dinner pail for many
months and is sleek and plump. He -
also complaisant. and took nut Of
Tered by visitor--eating out of the
hand with full confidence in humanity
he did not need nut and
had no hunger
Habits-those acquired in the hard
school of experience curing his :outh
before he had discovered the ben.ficent
conditions of life in the White HOUSE
grounds. where. as = dependent of iae
public. peanuts are provided ,,StI due
ing the tine of water f1niH~--itt.-
PEELED him TO acquire iood Whenever
and wherever II offered. Haiits-
based upon ancestral instinct-also
suggested to his squirrel mind the ad-
stability of storing such food not
needed for immediate consumpt on
against the possibilities of later
need.
Gray back Bit -of-his-tail- gone took
his nut and ran off into the grass out
of sight beyond bush. Nut in mouth,
sitting on his launches. with his front
paws he dug a hole in the ground.
When the hole was big enough he
dropped the nut into il and covered il
up. Then he assembled to his apartment,
for a quiet snooZe. forgetting all about
the nut he had buried. For Gray-hsca
and his brothers never remember where
they have buried their winter store,
but smell il out with their keen noses
when hunger is on them.
Rush-tail. also sleek and well fed,
but still too young 10 be lazy ALI the
time. frisking over the lawn. smeiled
out the nut buried by GTay-bsck. his
brother squirrel The rules of squirrel
life required him to dig up this buried
treasure. which he promptly proceeded
to do. Then Busb-tail took the same
nut to another part of the White House
lawn. nearer his own private apart
ments, and put IL underground I'm much
the same manner. For he was in no
present necessity for food. and was
bent on saving UP for hard times.
Any one of hundred other squirrels,
denizens of the White House grounds,
in their turn. turn and turn about,
might, in the course of time, have
smelled out that same buried store of
food. have resurrected il. reinterred il,
SO that the same nut would have been
buried a hundred or more times. But
another destiny was preparing for
that nut to dispose of it's future and to
save it from prospective series OF
funerals.
Spy-eye. slender. blue-black. rides
cent jacketed bluebird, is too suspi-
cious by nature to eat out of the hand.
His lack of confidence In humanity
makes providing for himself a harder
task than for the half-domesticated
park squirrel. So he is never too fat
and he has always an appetite, and his
sharp beady. bright eye is always on
the sharp lookout for opportunity to
ease the gnawing in his little insides.
Spy-eye saw Bush-tail busy making
hole in the ground. AS he kept him
self behind the back of Bush-tail.
Bush-tail did not see Spy-eye, and
Spy-eye could not see what Bush-tail
meant by his strange industry In grave
digging, no matter how much the In.
quisitive bird hoped about to get a
range of vision that would not also
make him observed by Bush-tail.
But Bushtail finished his job. and
then made off Spy-eye curious, hop
ped over to the spot where Bush-tail
had been so hard at work. He saw
the evidence of toll in the little mound
of fresh turned earth. Spy-eye thrust
his beak into the soft dirt, encounter
ing the hard shell of the nut. Spy
eyes curiosity was rewarded. His bill
cleared the dirt from the nut, and pried
it out of the hole. Then Spy-eye feast
ed on the nut. It's last burial place
was within his craw.