A CLEVER BEASTIE 



were an inch or so high, he would occasionally raid 

 the rows of corn near the stone walls. With the de- 

 predations of the crows in the middle of the field 

 and of the chipmunks along the borders, some sea- 

 sons the corn suffered badly. 



Many a time when I was a boy of ten or twelve 

 my father armed me with an old flintlock musket 

 and sent me forth to "shoot the chipmunks round 

 the corn." Sometimes the old gun would be loaded 

 with hard peas or small gravel-stones, and at only 

 six or seven yards' range the head of the poor chip- 

 munk peering from the wall was pretty sure to re- 

 ceive a fatal wound. I do not remember that I then 

 had any pity for him. In fact, I think I rather en- 

 joyed the sport of hunting him. That is the boy 

 of it. Needless to say, I could not do such a thing 

 now. 



Last summer the rats raided my garden and de- 

 stroyed scores of the ears of my Golden Bantam 

 corn. They would climb up the stalks at night and 

 strip off the husks like raccoons, and leave only the 

 cobs. I set traps in their runways baited with corn, 

 and caught a dozen or more of them; but one after- 

 noon, to my dismay, I found two chipmunks in the 

 traps. The mishap pained me so that I took the 

 traps away and let the rats have full swing. The 

 chipmunks had been lured by the corn that I had 

 scattered over the ground and placed on and under 

 the pans of the traps. 



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