UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
nothing but man. Little wonder that he looks calm 
and majestic and always at his ease! But I am get- 
ting away from my apple-trees. 
The arch-enemy of the chipmunk is the small red 
weasel, and I wonder if it is to hide from him that he 
usually digs his den away from the fences and other 
cover, in clean open ground, leaving no clue what- 
ever as to its whereabouts. He carries away all the 
soil, and either makes a pile of it some feet away, 
or else hides it completely. The den of my little 
neighbor is in the open grassy space between the 
rows of apple-trees, thirty or more yards from either 
fence. All that is visible of it is a small round hole 
in the ground nearly concealed by the overhanging 
grass. J had to watch him in order to find it. 
His chamber is about three feet below the surface 
of the ground, and has but one entrance, through a 
long crooked passage eight or ten feet long. If his 
arch-enemy were to find it, there would be no es- 
cape. There is no back door, and there are no secret 
passages. Probably many a tragedy is enacted in 
those little earth-chambers. The weasel himself 
fears nothing; he is the incarnation of bloodthirsti- 
ness, and his victims seem so horrified at the dis- 
covery that he is pursuing them that they become 
paralyzed. Even the fleet-footed rabbit in the open 
woods or fields falls an easy prey. 
One day last summer as I sat at the table in my 
hay-barn study, there boldly entered through the 
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