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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