Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 15, 2025
At this the gray squirrels skipped down from the branches, and began to run hither and thither, and to scratch among the moss and leaves, to find the entrance to the chitmunks' grain stores. They peeped under the old twisted roots of the pines and cedars, into every chink and cranny, but no sign of a granary was to be seen.
They found abundance of pine-cones strewn on the ground, but, alas for our little squirrels! very few kernels in them; for the crossbills and chiccadees had been at work for many weeks on the trees; and also many families of their poor relations, the chitmunks or ground squirrels, had not been idle, as our little voyagers could easily guess by the chips and empty cones round their holes.
"If you leave this island, and go down the lake, you will come to a mill, where the red squirrels live, and where you will have fine times," said one of the chitmunks. "Which is the nearest way to the mill?" asked Velvet-paw. "Swim to the shore, and keep the Indian path, and you will soon see it."
The vain little grey squirrels thought themselves much better than these little chitmunks, whom they treated with very little politeness, laughing at them for living in holes in the ground, instead of upon lofty trees, as they did; they even called them low-bred fellows, and wondered why they did not imitate their high breeding and behaviour.
"After all," said Silvy, who was the best of the three, "perhaps, if we had been civil, the chitmunks would have treated us better." "Well," said Nimble, "if they had been good fellows, they would have invited us, as our mother did Cousin Blackie, and have set before us the best they had. I could find it in my heart to dig them out of their holes and give them a good bite."
Then the chitmunks said, "My dear friends, this is a bad season to visit us; we are very poor just now, finding it difficult to get a few dry pine-kernels and berries, but if you will come and see us after harvest, we shall have a store of nuts and acorns." "Pretty fellows you are!" replied Nimble, "to put us off with promises, when we are so hungry; we might starve between this and harvest."
The blue jays were busy in the fields of wheat; so were the red-winged blackbirds, and the sparrows, and many other birds, great and small; field-mice in dozens were cutting the straw with their sharp teeth, and carrying off the grain to their nests; and as to the squirrels and chitmunks, there were scores of them black, red, and gray filling their cheeks with the grain, and laying it out on the rail fences and on the top of the stumps to dry, before they carried it away to their storehouses.
Now the chitmunks were really very pretty. They were, to be sure, not more than half the size of the gray squirrels, and their fur was short, without the soft, thick glossy look upon it of the gray squirrels'. They were of a lively, tawny yellow-brown colour, with long black and white stripes down their backs; their tails were not so long nor so thickly furred; and instead of living in the trees, they made their nests in logs and windfalls, and had their granaries and winter houses too underground, where they made warm nests of dried moss and grass and thistledown; to these they had several entrances, so that they had always a chance of refuge if danger were nigh.
The chitmunks took very little notice of their rudeness, but merely said that, if being high-bred made people rude, they would rather remain humble as they were. "As we are the head of all the squirrel families," said Silver-nose, "we shall do you the honour of breakfasting with you to-day."
The farmer shows them as little mercy as he does rats and mice, as they are very destructive, and carry off vast quantities of grain, which they store in hollow trees for use. Not contenting themselves with one, granary, they have several in case one should fail, or perhaps become injured by accidental causes. "How wise of these little chitmunks to think of that!" said Lady Mary.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking