UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
ily to the first apple-tree twenty feet away, and, 
perched upon its leaning trunk, sounded his little 
alarm, “Chuck, chuck,”’ for fifteen minutes or more. 
Apparently he had but just discovered me. After a 
time he came slyly back and resumed his foraging. 
The activity of the chipmunk when he is out of 
his den is almost incessant. Like the honey-bee, he 
seems filled with a raging impulse to lay up his win- 
ter stores. When he finds an ever-renewed supply, 
as in my orchard camp, his eagerness and industry 
are delightful to see. The more nuts I place for him, 
the more eager he becomes, as most of us do when we 
strike a rich lead of the things we are in quest of. 
Will his greed carry him to the point of filling his 
den so full that there remains no room for himself 
in it? Will he let the god of plenty turn him out of 
doors? Last summer I had seen a chipmunk’s hole 
filled up with choke-cherries to within three inches 
of the top. (“Naturally, being choke-cherries,” says 
a friend, looking over my shoulder.) 
From previous experience I calculated the capa- 
city of his chamber to be not more than four or 
five quarts. One day I gave him all I thought he 
could manage, — enough, I fancied, to fill his cham- 
ber full, — two quarts of hickory-nuts and some 
corn. How he responded to the invitation! How he 
flew over the course from my den to his! He fairly 
panted. The day might prove too short for him, or 
some other chipmunk might discover the pile of 
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