Chapter 2

And Sandy scurried down into his house again, to bob up in a few moments with another sample of his grain.

Once more Uncle Sammy ate it all.

"It's a bit damp," he remarked, as he smacked his lips. "I hope it's not moldy.... You'd better let me see another sample."

Uncle Sammy declared the next heap of kernels to be altogether too dry. And he kept ordering Sandy to fetch more for him to "taste," as he called it. Some of the wheat he considered too ripe, and some too green. Some of the kernels--so he said--were too little, and others too big. And finally he even told Sandy Chipmunk that he was afraid Sandy was trying to sell him _last year's_ wheat.

Now, Sandy knew that his wheat was fresh--all of it. So he went down and brought up still another load.

Uncle Sammy ate that more slowly, for by this time he had had a good meal.

"How do you like it?" Sandy asked him.

"It's fair," Uncle Sammy replied. "But I believe it's _next year's_ wheat. And of course I wouldn't think of buying that kind.... I guess I can't trade with you, after all." And he started to hobble away.

When Sandy heard that, and saw the old fellow leaving, he began to scold.

"Aren't you going to pay me for what you've eaten?" he asked.

"What! Pay you for the samples?" Uncle Sammy asked. "I guess, young man, you don't know much about keeping a store. Nobody ever pays for samples." And he went away muttering to himself.

Sandy Chipmunk felt very sad. Uncle Sammy had eaten half his winter's supply of wheat.

Sandy was angry, too. And for several days he was busier than ever, trying to think of some way in which he could make Uncle Sammy Coon pay him.

VII

UNCLE SAMMY'S STORE

Not long after Uncle Sammy Coon ate half of Sandy Chipmunk's wheat without paying for it he seemed to grow lamer than ever. And he walked less than ever, too. A good many of the forest-folk said that he really wasn't any lamer--but he was lazier.

However that may have been, he began to stay at home a good deal of the time. And finally Sandy Chipmunk heard that Uncle Sammy had opened a store, in which he kept all sorts of good things to eat.

When Sandy learned that he lost no time in going over to Uncle Sammy's house near the swamp.

Sure enough! There he found Uncle Sammy sitting behind a long table. And behind him were shelves loaded with apples, pears, corn, nuts and many other kinds of food.

"I'd like to buy some nuts," Sandy Chipmunk told the old gentleman.

"Nuts?" said Uncle Sammy. "I have some fine nuts."

"Let me see a sample," Sandy said.

But Uncle Sammy never stirred.

"There they are, right on the shelf!" he said. "Look at them all you want to."

"I'll eat one and see how I like it," said Sandy Chipmunk.

But Uncle Sammy shook his head.

"No!" he replied. "That's the old-fashioned way of keeping a store. I don't give away any samples."

When Sandy heard that he was angrier than ever. And he wished he had never given Uncle Sammy any samples of his wheat. But he knew there was no use of _appearing angry_. So he smiled and asked:

"What is the price of your beechnuts?"

"For one handful, you will have to pay me an ear of corn," Uncle Sammy said.

"I'll take a handful," said Sandy.

Still the old fellow never stirred.

"Where's your ear of corn?" he inquired.

"Oh! I'll give you that the next time I pass this way," said Sandy. And he made up his mind that he would take good care to keep away from Uncle Sammy's house.

But Uncle Sammy Coon was too sharp.

"That won't do at all," he said. "I must have the corn before I give you the nuts."

So Sandy Chipmunk stepped to the door.

"I'll come back soon," he said. And he ran all the way to Farmer Green's cornfield, to get an ear of green corn. And then he ran all the way back to Uncle Sammy's house.

"There!" Sandy said. "There's your ear of corn!" He laid it upon the table. "Now give me a handful of beechnuts."

"Step right in and help yourself," Uncle Sammy answered.

"No!" said Sandy. "You give me the nuts." He knew that Uncle Sammy's hands were much bigger than his own and would hold more nuts.

"I should think you might get them," the old scamp grumbled. "I've a lame knee, you know."

"But I said a 'handful'--not a 'kneeful,'" Sandy answered. "Of course, if you don't want this juicy ear of corn, there are others that would like it." He started to pick the ear of corn off the table when Uncle Sammy rose quickly.

"All right!" he cried. "But it's the old-fashioned way; and I don't like it." Then he gave Sandy a small handful of beechnuts.

Sandy Chipmunk ate them right on the spot. And he began to feel very happy. He had noticed that Uncle Sammy tossed the ear of corn into a basket which stood beneath the table. And the basket was full of corn. Sandy could reach it just as easily from the front of the table as Uncle Sammy could from behind it.

And Sandy Chipmunk had thought all at once of a way to get a good many nuts away from Uncle Sammy, to pay for all the wheat Uncle Sammy had eaten.

VIII

THE BASKET OF CORN

"What are those nuts on the top shelf?" Sandy Chipmunk asked Uncle Sammy Coon.

Now, Uncle Sammy had been keeping store so short a time that he didn't exactly know what was on every one of his shelves. So he wheeled around and looked up. And as soon as his back was turned, Sandy Chipmunk reached down under the table and pulled an ear of corn out of the big basket.

"They're butternuts," Uncle Sammy said. "And they're the same price as the beechnuts."

"Give me one handful," Sandy said.

"_Give_ you a handful--" Uncle Sammy snapped.

But Sandy Chipmunk smiled at him.

"I mean, _sell_ me a handful," he explained. "And here's your ear of corn." It really was Uncle Sammy's ear of corn, you know--just as Sandy said.

But Uncle Sammy didn't know that. He didn't know it had come out of his own basket. So he threw it into the basket and set a handful of butternuts before Sandy Chipmunk.

Sandy was longer eating those, for the shells were harder and thicker than the beechnut shells. But in a little while he was ready for more.

"How about your chestnuts?" he asked.

And Uncle Sammy turned his back again.

"I have a few," he said.

"I'll buy a handful," Sandy told him, as he pulled another ear of corn out of the basket.

And after that Sandy bought hickory nuts and hazelnuts and walnuts.

"How about peanuts?" he asked then. "I've never eaten any; but I've heard they are very good."

Uncle Sammy stood up and searched his shelves very carefully. And while he was searching, Sandy Chipmunk took six ears of green corn out of the big basket under the table.

"I don't seem to have any peanuts," Uncle Sammy Coon said at last.

"Well--have you any nutmegs?" Sandy inquired.

And while Uncle Sammy was looking for nutmegs, Sandy Chipmunk slyly took six more ears from the basket. He had more corn now than he could carry. So he quickly tossed it out through the doorway.

Uncle Sammy Coon had to admit at last that he had no nutmegs. But Sandy kept him busy hunting for almonds and Brazil nuts and pecans, though he knew well enough that nothing of the sort grew in those woods.

By the time Uncle Sammy stopped looking there was no more corn left in his basket. But there was a great pile of corn on the ground just outside his door, where Sandy Chipmunk had thrown it.

Then Sandy said he must be going. And long before Uncle Sammy stirred out of his house Sandy had carried the corn away and hid it in a good, safe place. He thought that if he left it to dry it would make just as good food for winter as the wheat Uncle Sammy had eaten. And that was just what happened.

That night, long after Sandy Chipmunk had left the store, Uncle Sammy Coon had a great surprise. When he went to the basket, to get some green corn for his supper, there was not a single ear there.

"That's queer!" Uncle Sammy Coon exclaimed. "It was full this afternoon. And now there's not an ear left. I don't remember eating it." He thought deeply for a long time. And after a while he said to himself: "I wonder if it could have been that Chipmunk boy?" But he decided that Sandy was too small to have carried away all those big ears under his very nose. "I must have eaten it," he told himself. "I'm getting terribly forgetful."

And since he thought he had already had his supper, Uncle Sammy Coon went to bed without any supper at all.

IX

WORKING FOR MR. CROW

Old Mr. Crow had decided that he would not fly south to spend the winter. He said he was getting almost too old for such a long journey. And he remembered, too, that he had heard the weather was going to be mild that winter.

"There's just one thing that worries me," he told Aunt Polly Woodchuck one day, when he was talking the matter over with her. "I don't know what I shall have to eat."

"Why, you can sleep until spring, just as I do," Aunt Polly said. "Then you won't want anything to eat."

But Mr. Crow said he was a light sleeper and that he could no more sleep the whole winter long than Aunt Polly could fly.

"Then why don't you store up some corn, the way the squirrels do?" she asked him. There was one thing about Aunt Polly--she always had a remedy for everything.

"That's a good idea!" Mr. Crow told her. "Maybe I can get somebody to help me, too."

And that very day he went to Sandy Chipmunk and asked him if he didn't want to gather some food for him.

"How much will you pay me?" Sandy asked him.

"I'll give you half what you gather for me," said Mr. Crow. "And that's certainly fair, I'm sure. It's often done. And it's called 'working at the halves.'"

It seemed fair to Sandy Chipmunk, too.

"That's a bargain," he said. "I'll begin right away. Where do you want me to hide the food for you, Mr. Crow?"

Old Mr. Crow told Sandy to put it in his house in the top of the tall elm tree.

"I don't like to climb so high," Sandy objected. "You know I'm not so good a climber as Frisky Squirrel. He wouldn't mind climbing up to your house. But it might make me dizzy."

"Well," said Mr. Crow, "why don't you bring the food to the foot of my tree and get Frisky Squirrel to carry it to the top?"

"I'll do it," said Sandy Chipmunk--"if Frisky is willing." So he went off to find Frisky Squirrel, who proved to be much interested in the plan.

"How much will you pay me?" he asked Sandy Chipmunk.

"I suppose you ought to have half the food," Sandy said. "That's what Mr. Crow is paying me."

Frisky Squirrel said that that seemed fair. So they set to work at once. And every time Sandy brought a load of food to the foot of the tall elm, where Mr. Crow lived, he found Frisky Squirrel waiting for him.

"Let's see--" Frisky said, when Sandy brought the first load--"since I'm to get half, I'll take everything you bring in your left cheek-pouch. And you can take what you bring in the right one."

Sandy Chipmunk said that that seemed fair. So each time he came to the elm he left with Frisky only what he carried in his left cheek-pouch. And before gathering more food he scampered home to store away his own share.

So the day passed. And when evening came, and the sun was dropping out of sight in the west, Sandy and Frisky decided they had worked long enough for Mr. Crow.

"Don't you suppose he has enough food by this time?" Sandy asked. He looked up at Mr. Crow's house. "We mustn't fill his house too full," he said. "He has to have room for himself, you know."

"I don't think he'll have any trouble getting inside it," Frisky Squirrel answered.

"Well--I'm glad you helped me," Sandy told him. "If it didn't make me dizzy to climb so high I'd like to take a look at Mr. Crow's food. I hope he'll be pleased."

"I hope he will," Frisky Squirrel agreed.

Sandy Chipmunk noticed that Frisky Squirrel was smiling. But he thought that it was only because he was thinking about Mr. Crow, and how happy he would be.

"Let's wait here till he comes home," Sandy suggested.

But Frisky Squirrel said that he was going to bed early that night, because he expected to have a race with the sun the next morning.

"I'm going to try to beat him," he explained. "I'm going to see if I can't get up before he does."

So Frisky said good-night and left Sandy to wait for Mr. Crow alone.

X

MR. CROW SCOLDS SANDY

When he finally reached home, after Sandy Chipmunk had been working for him all day, Mr. Crow was feeling very pleasant. You know, he thought that his winter's food must be in his house. And that alone is enough to make any one happy. But what Mr. Crow liked most about his bargain was the fact that he wouldn't have to pay Sandy for his work. He had said to Sandy: "I'll agree to give you half what you gather for me." And Sandy Chipmunk had never stopped to think that that was not any pay at all. For he might have gathered the food for himself, and had all, instead of only half of it. As it was, Sandy Chipmunk was paying himself for working for Mr. Crow. And Mr. Crow seemed to be the only one that was wise enough to know it.

Mr. Crow dropped down upon the ground beside Sandy Chipmunk.

"Well," he said, "have you finished?"

"Yes!" Sandy answered. "And I hope you'll like what I've done. I'll wait here until you fly up to your house and look at the food."

"All right!" Mr. Crow told him. He flapped his big, black wings. And soon he had risen to the top of the tall elm.

Sandy watched him as he looked inside his house. At first Mr. Crow only stared--and said nothing. And then--to Sandy's astonishment--he began to scold.

"What's the trouble?" Sandy Chipmunk called.

"Trouble?" Mr. Crow cried, as he flew down again. "There's trouble enough. Why, you haven't kept your bargain!"

Sandy Chipmunk declared that he had done exactly as he had agreed.

"I brought load after load of food to the foot of this tree," he explained. "Half of it I took for myself--just as you suggested. Of course, I had to pay Frisky Squirrel for helping me. I paid him half the food for carrying it up to your house."

"That's it!" Mr. Crow cried. "That's the trouble! You took half and Frisky Squirrel took half. So of course there was no food left for me. There are two halves in a whole, you know."

"You must be mistaken," Sandy told him politely. "There's only _one_ half in my hole. I put my half there myself, and I ought to know."

Mr. Crow looked as if he thought Sandy Chipmunk must be playing a trick on him. But pretty soon he saw that it was not so.

"You don't seem to understand," Mr. Crow said. "I don't believe you've ever studied fractions."

Sandy Chipmunk admitted that he never had.

"Ah!" Mr. Crow exclaimed. "This is what comes of hiring stupid people to work for one. Here I've wasted all my corn. And I get nothing for it but trouble."

"Corn!" Sandy Chipmunk exclaimed. "I don't know anything about any corn!"

"Well, you certainly are stupid!" Mr. Crow told him crossly. "Didn't you spend the whole day gathering corn for me?"

"No, indeed!" Sandy replied. "I gathered beechnuts, Mr. Crow."

"Beechnuts!" Mr. Crow repeated. "I never told you I wanted _nuts_. I'd starve, trying to live on nuts; for they don't agree with me at all. And I make it a rule never to eat them. _Corn_ is what I want."

"You didn't say so," Sandy Chipmunk said. "You asked me to gather _food_ for you. And every one knows there's no better food than beechnuts to last through the winter."

"That--" said Mr. Crow--"that is where we do not agree. I supposed you knew I wanted corn. But there's no great harm done, anyhow," he added. "Tomorrow you can gather _corn_ for me--now that you know what I want. No doubt you can get Frisky Squirrel to help you again. But you must pay him with _your_ share of the corn--not with mine."

"But then there wouldn't be any left for me," Sandy objected.

"But just think of all the beechnuts you have," Mr. Crow reminded him.

Sandy Chipmunk shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm too stupid to work for you any more," he told Mr. Crow.

"Oh! I didn't mean what I said," Mr. Crow hastened to explain.

"Then--" Sandy said--"then how do I know that you mean what you say when you tell me you want corn to eat?"

And Mr. Crow could find no answer to that. He was disappointed, too. For he was afraid he would have to go south to spend the winter, after all.

XI

THE MAIL-BOX

Climbing an oak at the cross-roads one day, not far from Farmer Green's house, Sandy Chipmunk discovered a queer box nailed to the trunk of the tree. Much as he wanted to, he couldn't look inside the box, because its lid was closed. And since Sandy was afraid the box might be some sort of trap, he didn't dare go near it and poke at the lid.

Later that day Sandy told Frisky Squirrel about the strange box. And Frisky told Fatty Coon. And Fatty Coon told somebody else.

So the news traveled, until at last it reached the sharp ears of old Mr. Crow.

By the time Mr. Crow heard the story it had grown amazingly. And it went something like this: Farmer Green had bought a new trap in the village. And he had nailed it on a tree to catch all sorts of animals and birds. And after he had caught all the forest-folk in Pleasant Valley he intended to take the trap to Swift River and set it for fish and eels and turtles.

When Mr. Crow heard the news he _haw-hawed_ loudly.

"What are you laughing about?" Jasper Jay asked him. (It was Jasper who repeated the story to Mr. Crow.) "You wouldn't think it was such a joke if you were caught in the trap."

"Trap!" Mr. Crow sneered. "That's no trap. That's what's called a _mail-box_. Every day a man with letters and newspapers drives over here from the village. And he stops at the cross-roads and leaves something in the box for Farmer Green."

As soon as he heard that, Jasper Jay flew away to tell everybody about the mail-box. And at last Sandy Chipmunk heard the story. But by the time it reached his ears--after it had been told by one person to another almost forty times--the story was somewhat different from what it had been when Mr. Crow first told it to Jasper Jay. This is what Sandy heard: The thing on the tree was a mailbox. Every day a man drove from the village in a wagon drawn by twelve horses. He had a load of letters as big as six haystacks. And he left a handful of letters in that box, because he wanted to get rid of them so he could go back to the village for more. And any one could take a letter--if it happened to be for him.

It was Frisky Squirrel who told the story to Sandy. Of course, after so much telling it had changed a good deal. But Sandy Chipmunk didn't know that. And he hurried to the cross-roads at once, to watch for the man driving the twelve horses.

When he reached the oak, where the box was, Sandy climbed the tree and perched himself on a limb and waited. He had not sat there long before he saw a man drive up the road. Sandy Chipmunk was surprised when the man stopped beneath the tree and dropped some letters and newspapers into the box. He was surprised because the man drove only one horse, instead of twelve. And the man had only a single bag of mail in his wagon, instead of a great heap--as big as six haystacks.

Sandy Chipmunk was somewhat disappointed. But he was glad of one thing: The man left the lid of the box open. And as soon as he had driven on again, Sandy crept down the tree and crawled right inside the mail-box.

Though he was not expecting a letter from anybody, he thought it would be just as well to look and see if the man had left one for him.

Now, Sandy had never learned to read. And you might think it would do him no good at all to look at the envelopes. But he soon came upon one which he was sure was his. And the reason for that was that he had found an envelope with the picture of a chipmunk in one corner of it!

That was enough for Sandy.

"I'm glad I came!" he said to himself. "Here's a letter for me! And how surprised everybody will be!"

So he took the letter in his mouth and started down the tree.

The very first person he surprised was Farmer Green himself. He had walked to the cross-roads from his house. And he had almost reached the oak when he saw Sandy Chipmunk spring from the tree to the stone wall, with a letter in his mouth, and scamper away.

Farmer Green ran after Sandy. And he threw stones at him. But Sandy Chipmunk ran so fast that Farmer Green soon lost sight of him.

"I'd like to know what was in that letter," Farmer Green said, when he told his family what had happened. "I'll have to warn the letter-carrier to be sure to close the mail-box after this, for I can't have any more of my letters stolen."

Johnnie Green couldn't help laughing, when he heard his father tell about the chipmunk running away with a letter in his mouth.

But Farmer Green didn't seem to see anything to laugh at.

"I only hope," he said, "the letter was nothing of importance."

XII

SANDY GETS A LETTER

After Sandy Chipmunk, with the letter in his mouth, escaped from Farmer Green, he ran home and showed his letter to everybody he met. He felt very proud.

"See!" he said. "There was a letter for me in the mail-box. It's lucky I found it when I did, for I believe Farmer Green would have taken it if I hadn't reached the box before him."

Old Mr. Crow laughed mockingly when Sandy called to him that he had a letter.

"I see you _have_ one," Mr. Crow said. "But the question is, to whom does it really belong? If the truth were known, I guess that letter rightfully belongs to a farmer named Green."

That remark made Sandy angry.

"The letter belongs to me!" he told Mr. Crow. "Here's my picture on it. You can see for yourself."

Now, Mr. Crow could not read either--for all he was so old. And when he saw the picture of a chipmunk on the envelope, exactly like Sandy, he was very much surprised.

"Why don't you open your letter?" he asked.

"I hadn't thought of that," Sandy replied. So he tore open the envelope and pulled out a paper.

"It's certainly for me," he said, "for here's my picture again. But I'd like to know why these other people have their pictures in _my_ letter. They've no business in _my_ letter!"

Mr. Crow looked over Sandy's shoulder--which was not at all a polite thing to do.

"That's queer!" Mr. Crow exclaimed. "There's one of the Red-Squirrel boys and Mrs. Mouse's son. And this young chap here looks a lot like Rinaldo Rat. ... I'd be pretty angry if anybody sent me a letter like that," Mr. Crow then said.

Now, the real trouble with Mr. Crow was that he was jealous because Sandy Chipmunk had a letter, while _he_ had none.

"I'd throw that letter away, if it was mine," remarked Mr. Crow. And he said so much that at last Sandy Chipmunk tossed the letter away and went off to hunt for birds' eggs.

As soon as Sandy was out of sight, Mr. Crow picked up the letter and flew home with it.

He felt better--because at last he had a letter, while Sandy Chipmunk no longer had one.

That very afternoon Farmer Green drove to the village. And on his way he stopped at the houses of several of his neighbors, to talk about the weather and the crops. And each one of them showed him a letter that had come that day, telling all about a new kind of poison, to rid a farmer of chipmunks and red squirrels and rats and mice.

"Sprinkle our powder around your corn-crib," the letter said, "and these little rodents will trouble you no longer."

"I declare!" cried Farmer Green at last. "I seem to be the only person in the neighborhood that didn't get one of those letters." Then he happened to remember the letter Sandy Chipmunk had carried away in his mouth. "It must have been that letter that the chipmunk stole out of my mail-box!" Farmer Green said. And that night, when he reached home and told his family about the letter, his son Johnnie laughed harder than ever.

"That must be a wise chipmunk!" Johnnie Green exclaimed. "I wish I could catch him and put him in my squirrel cage."