AN ACCOUNT WITH NATURE 



123 



bushel, which they have stored as they tried to store 

 the berries, somewhere in the big recesses of the 

 stone wall. 



All this, however, is beside the point. It is n't a 

 'case of oats and berries against June-bugs. You 

 don't haggle with Nature after that fashion. The 

 farm is not a market-place where you get exactly 

 what you pay for. You must spend on the farm all 

 you have of time and strength and brains ; but you 

 must not expect in return merely your money's worth. 

 Infinitely more than that, and oftentimes less. Farm- 

 ing is like virtue, its own reward. It pays the man ' 

 who loves it, no matter how short the crop of oats and 

 corn. 



So it is with Chipmunk. Perhaps his books don't 

 balance a few June-bugs short on the credit side. 

 What then? It is n't mere bugs and berries, as I 

 have just suggested, but stone-piles. What is the 

 difference in value to me between a stone-pile with 

 a chipmunk in it and one without. Just the difference, 

 relatively speaking, between the house with my four 

 boys in it, and the house without. 



Chipmunk, with his sleek, round form, his rich 

 color and his stripes, is the daintiest, most beautiful 

 , of all our squirrels. He is one of the friendliest of 

 my tenants, too, friendlier even than the friendliest of 

 my birds Chickadee. The two are very much alike 

 in spirit; but however tame and confiding Chickadee 

 may become, he is still a bird and belongs to a different 



