118 



THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 



self at that moment, he might have fared badly, foi\ 

 more than likely, I thought, it was he who had stolen 

 my berries. On the garden wall sat a friendly chip- 

 munk eying me sympathetically. 



A few days later several fine berries were ripe, and\^ L 

 I was again on my way to the garden when I passed ^ 

 the chipmunks in the orchard. A shining red spot 

 among the vine-covered stones of their wall brought ^'. . 

 me to a stop. For an instant I thought that it was my *~ \ 

 rose-breasted grosbeak, and that I was about to get a *: } 

 clew to its nest. Then up to the slab where he ate the V; 

 June-bugs scrambled the chipmunk, and the rose-red! \ 

 . spot on the breast of the supposed grosbeak dissolved' ; 

 into a big scarlet-red strawberry. And by its long > 

 wedge shape I knew it was one of my new variety, (ft) 



I hurried across to the patch and found every l-j^ 

 berry gone, while a line of bloody fragments led me J J* 

 back to the orchard wall, where a half-dozen fresh 

 calyx crowns completed my second discovery. 



No, it did not complete it. It took a little watch- 

 ing to find out that the whole family all seven ! 

 were after those berries. They were picking them 

 half ripe, even, and actually storing them away, can- 

 ning them, down in the cavernous depths of the 

 stone-pile ! 



Alarmed? Yes, and I was wrathful, too. The taste 

 for strawberries is innate, original; vou can't be 

 human without it. But joy in chipmunks is a culti- 

 ,vated liking. What chance in such a circumstance 



