Doug Daugherty
It fell pink and hairless, down the chimney. The eyes yet to open. What was it? A mouse? A rat? No. As it turned out, it was a baby squirrel, a kit.
So began a simple tale of innocence and cuteness gone wild.
Many years ago, when we were young and just married, we lived in a basement apartment at my in-laws, John and Clara Crabtree, on Missionary Ridge. The Crabtrees were kind and wonderful. Mrs. Crabtree was born in Spring City. She knew a thing or two about wild things.
She had a certain ingrained repulsion of all varmints.
It should have been no surprise when we heard her scream. Something alive, small and squirmy had fallen down the chimney. When we hurried to investigate, we found a tiny, few ounces of shivering pink flesh. Mrs. Crabtree had one response. Get it out of her sight!
My wife, Sally, somehow escaped this revulsion. She has always loved all things baby-like. (I assume this is why she loves children and gave birth to our six.) Sally gently picked up the pink kit and lovingly let it rest in her palm. She stroked it. It seemed to settle down. Apparently, this kitten had fallen from her mother’s nest of twigs and leaves high up in the chimney.
We couldn’t resist. (Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.) We took the kit into our lives. We found out from a friendly veterinarian – this is before the internet – that the infant squirrel needed nourishment. We bought some human baby formula and found a tiny doll baby bottle and began the first of many feedings. The squirreling slept in a drawer of mine that was full of socks. It was silent.
At some point, we named it Nuts, and it was a wonderful pet. As it grew, its downy hair turned brown and soft, a fluffy tale appeared, and it would stand on one of our bended knees as we lay in bed. The little darling was so cute! Nuts would peek his head with its big bright eyes out of the sock drawer and survey the world that lay before it. Scampering about it could dart from chair to chair, or up the curtains. We were a happy threesome, Nuts, Sally and I. We even began to take Nuts, loaded into a picnic basket, with us as we went about our daily business.
This all changed when we gave Nuts his first peanut. Ye gads. The transformation from cute to wild came about as quickly as Lon Chaney could change into the Wolfman.
Nuts fixated on peanuts. We would give him one at a time. Quickly he would scurry off and hide the nuts in all sorts of places, especially my clothing. He was obsessed. (Some would say possessed.) What had been a cute quiet creature became, how do I say it, wild.
One day I was putting on my best coat and stuck my hands in the pockets. They were full of nuts! Something bit me! It was Nuts. From then on, the squirrel began to jump huge distances, tail like a soft brown sail, mostly from curtains or furniture and Nuts would land with tiny claws outstretched on your shoulders, back, or worse, your face.
This behavior became unacceptable. We knew we had to do something when Nuts landed on Mrs. Crabtree’s cheek and drew blood! Too many finger nips. Too many scratches. Too much poor manners. Too much trying to domesticate a wild thing.
After much thought, we knew that Nuts only chance was a return to the outdoors. But how would he survive? Could he find things to eat? At first, we merely turned him loose outside our door and left him piles of peanuts that reassuringly disappeared. He would chatter from tree tops. Soon the piles of nuts were undisturbed, but we saw nuts flying through the trees, free and happy. We like to believe sentimentally that he eventually found a girl-squirrel and became a doting father.
The other day, I found that old coat. The pocket was still full of nuts. The memory of Mrs. Crabtree screaming, Sally loving, and Nuts flying through the air all came back.
The lesson? Cute and wild may sometimes be the same thing.
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Doug Daugherty can be reached at dedsr1952@gmail.com