THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 12, 1994 TAG: 9406090440
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: George Tucker
DATELINE: 940612 LENGTH: Medium
Let me back up a bit. . . .
{REST} A friend of mine, whose first name was Walter, came home from a brief stay in the country with four gray squirrels an obliging farmer uncle had given him for pets. The squirrels were temporarily housed in a small-mesh wire cage formerly occupied by a pet raccoon. But they didn't remain penned up there long. Walter's father, who had a clever bent for carpentry, constructed an airy cage for them near his backyard woodshed. The new cage contained a couple of rotating wire wheels on which the squirrels soon learned to race with amazing rapidity. When this news got around Berkley, youngsters flocked to see the squirrels put on their swift-paced act that seemingly transformed their bodies into whirligigs of grayish-brown fur.
But the novelty soon palled, and then Walter and I had the squirrels to ourselves. They soon knew us so well that we could play with them outside the cage without fear of their escaping. This change of routine rang up the curtain on the tragicomedy that followed.
The afternoon it took place was a socially important one for Walter's mother, a prominent Episcopalian who was also a leader in the Berkley chapter of the Daughters of the King. The annual election of officers took place at that meeting, followed by an elaborate meal.
While Walter's mother and her friends engaged in the business part of the meeting in the parlor, we sat on the back-porch steps playing with the squirrels. In the meantime, Walter regaled me with an account of the goodies spread out in the dining room. I insisted on having a peek, and when we tipped into the house, the squirrels did too.
In my childish eyes, that dining room with its spotless linen, gleaming cut glass, shining silver and red and white carnations in tall glass vases was a first cousin of Kubla Khan's stately pleasure dome. And since the food looked so tempting, Walter and I decided to sample some on the sly.
Unfortunately the squirrels felt the same urge. Soon they were leaping from the dining room table to the sideboard attacking the salted nuts and other edibles with a vengeance. This caused immediate panic. In our frantic efforts to recapture them, a number of vases were overturned and several heaped-up platefuls of sandwiches cascaded to the carpet. At that moment, we heard the excited chatter of female voices, and a second later Walter's mother slid back the folding doors that separated the parlor from the dining room.
``Come right in, girls, and make yourselves at home,'' she chirped. ``Everything is all. . . .'' The rest of the sentence froze on her lips.
Fleeing precipitously, we left the culprit squirrels behind to face the music. But that didn't end the drama. By the time I reached home my mother had been telephoned and was waiting for me with my father's razor strap. And the next morning when I met Walter on the way to school I learned the final details of the episode.
``What happened to your squirrels?'' I asked.
``Well,'' Walter answered, flinching from the memory of the cowhiding he had received the night before, ``when Mama and Papa got through whaling the devil out of me, they rounded 'em up and took 'em out to Money Point on the streetcar, and let 'em loose in the woods.''
by CNB