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It was the noise made by the gatherers of beechnuts, for in the years when the beech produces abundantly, this harvest, under the sanction of the guardians of the forest, draws together the whole population of women and children, who collect these triangular nuts, from which an excellent species of oil is procured.
And though Jasper Jay showed a very sulky face to everybody for several days, it was a long time before he spoiled any songs that he happened to hear. And he never annoyed Buddy Brown-Thrasher again. Morning and evening Buddy went to his favorite perch and sang to his heart's content. For Jasper Jay had learned a lesson at last. JASPER JAY was not the only bird that liked beechnuts.
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.
"Oh," said Jumper and looked as if he felt a wee bit foolish. "What was he doing when you saw him?" asked Old Mother Nature, turning to Striped Chipmunk. "Hunting," replied Striped Chipmunk, and shivered. "He was hunting me. He had found my tracks where I had been gathering beechnuts, and he was following them with his nose just the way Bowser the Hound follows Reddy Fox.
By and by the leaves began to fall, and whenever the Porky walked abroad they rustled around him like silk skirts going down the aisle of a church. A little later the beechnuts came down from the sky, and he feasted more luxuriously than ever.
The same bright yet tender tint reddened the crab-apple and the wild- cherry; the tomtits and the robins chirped as before, among the bushes, and, as in the previous year, one heard the sound of the beechnuts and acorns dropping on the rocky paths.
Their life was rougher than it had been, for they had now to subsist entirely upon the spoils of the chase, and bread made of ground acorns and beechnuts, mixed with a very small portion of flour. The latter was obtained from lonely cottages, for Beric insisted that no villages should be entered.
Being cooped up in that little wire prison day after day made an entirely different squirrel of him. He longed to be free once more free to scamper through the tree-tops, and along the stone-walls and the rail-fences. And at night he dreamed of hunting for beechnuts, and chestnuts, and hickorynuts, on which he would feast to his heart's content in his dreams.
The hole led into the dead heart of the tree, which had been hollowed out with pains so as to make a roomy, cosy home, which the squirrels had lined with fur and moss, and which was well stored with beechnuts from the tree, their winter's provisions. Between the boys and the squirrels there existed an armed neutrality.
"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."
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