“The Report of Thomas Telford, Robert Stevenson, and

"Father, what is it to be--dead?"

"The boy who brings the milk--he had the squirrel this morning. He said it was not asleep. It was--dead."

"It means that the squirrel, the real squirrel under the fur, has gone away, David."

"But he left his--his fur coat behind him. Didn't he need--that?"

"No, or he'd have taken it with him."

David had fallen silent at this. He had remained strangely silent indeed for some days; then, out in the woods with his father one morning, he gave a joyous shout. He was standing by the ice-covered brook, and looking at a little black hole through which the hurrying water could be plainly seen.

"Daddy, oh, daddy, I know now how it is, about being--dead."

"It's like the water in the brook, you know; THAT'S going to a far country, and it isn't coming back. And it leaves its little cold ice-coat behind it just as the squirrel did, too. It does n't need it. It can go without it. Don't you see? And it's singing--listen!--it's singing as it goes. It WANTS to go!"