"I see you _have_ one," Mr. Crow said. "But the question is, to whom does it really belong? If the truth were known, I guess that letter rightfully belongs to a farmer named Green."
That remark made Sandy angry.
"The letter belongs to me!" he told Mr. Crow. "Here"s my picture on it.
You can see for yourself."
Now, Mr. Crow could not read either--for all he was so old. And when he saw the picture of a chipmunk on the envelope, exactly like Sandy, he was very much surprised.
"Why don"t you open your letter?" he asked.
"I hadn"t thought of that," Sandy replied. So he tore open the envelope and pulled out a paper.
"It"s certainly for me," he said, "for here"s my picture again. But I"d like to know why these other people have their pictures in _my_ letter.
They"ve no business in _my_ letter!"
Mr. Crow looked over Sandy"s shoulder--which was not at all a polite thing to do.
"That"s queer!" Mr. Crow exclaimed. "There"s one of the Red-Squirrel boys and Mrs. Mouse"s son. And this young chap here looks a lot like Rinaldo Rat. ... I"d be pretty angry if anybody sent me a letter like that," Mr.
Crow then said.
Now, the real trouble with Mr. Crow was that he was jealous because Sandy Chipmunk had a letter, while _he_ had none.
"I"d throw that letter away, if it was mine," remarked Mr. Crow. And he said so much that at last Sandy Chipmunk tossed the letter away and went off to hunt for birds" eggs.
As soon as Sandy was out of sight, Mr. Crow picked up the letter and flew home with it.
He felt better--because at last he had a letter, while Sandy Chipmunk no longer had one.
That very afternoon Farmer Green drove to the village. And on his way he stopped at the houses of several of his neighbors, to talk about the weather and the crops. And each one of them showed him a letter that had come that day, telling all about a new kind of poison, to rid a farmer of chipmunks and red squirrels and rats and mice.
"Sprinkle our powder around your corn-crib," the letter said, "and these little rodents will trouble you no longer."
"I declare!" cried Farmer Green at last. "I seem to be the only person in the neighborhood that didn"t get one of those letters." Then he happened to remember the letter Sandy Chipmunk had carried away in his mouth. "It must have been that letter that the chipmunk stole out of my mail-box!"
Farmer Green said. And that night, when he reached home and told his family about the letter, his son Johnnie laughed harder than ever.
"That must be a wise chipmunk!" Johnnie Green exclaimed. "I wish I could catch him and put him in my squirrel cage."
"I wish he"d leave my mail alone," said Farmer Green. "The next thing we know, he"ll be taking my newspaper to read. And maybe he"ll come right into the house and borrow my spectacles."
Johnnie Green seemed to think his father was joking. And perhaps he was.
What do you think about it?
XIII
A RIDE TO THE MILLER"S
Do you know about the time Johnnie Green and his grandmother and Sandy Chipmunk started for the miller"s with a sack of wheat to be ground? If you never heard the story, this is the way it happened--and if you _have_ heard it, it happened this way, just the same:
Farmer Green"s wife had noticed that the flour in her flour-barrel was getting low. So one morning Farmer Green pulled a wagon from under a shed and set a big bag of wheat in it, behind the seat. Then he went into the house to get a piece of string with which to tie the bag. Farmer Green hadn"t seen a pair of bright eyes that were watching him from the fence near-by. And he didn"t know that as soon as he started to cross the barnyard, Sandy Chipmunk stole up to the wagon, climbed into it, and crept inside the open bag of wheat.
Now, Sandy had not had his breakfast. So he began at once to eat heartily of the wheat kernels, believing that after he had had a good meal it would be time enough to think of carrying some of the wheat away to his house. He only hoped that no one would take the bag away until he had removed _all_ the wheat. There was enough of it--he was sure--to last him for any number of winters.
Now, you must not think that Sandy was greedy, because he wanted all that wheat. He intended all the time to leave the _bag_ for Farmer Green.
The wheat tasted so good that Sandy Chipmunk could think of nothing else. So he never heard Johnnie Green"s father when he came back from the house. And before Sandy knew what was happening, Farmer Green had reached into the wagon, drawn the mouth of the bag together, and tied it hard and fast.
There was Sandy Chipmunk, inside the bag. And he was so frightened that he couldn"t eat another mouthful. He just shivered and shook, while Farmer Green went into the barn, led out an old, slow horse called Ebenezer, and harnessed him to the wagon.
Then Johnnie Green and his grandmother came out and seated themselves in the wagon. Farmer Green gave Johnnie the reins; and Ebenezer started jogging down the road toward the miller"s, with Johnnie"s old straw hat and his grandmother"s sunbonnet bobbing from side to side, and up and down, and backwards and forwards, as the wagon jolted over ruts and stones and thank-you-ma"ams--which were small ridges built across the road, to turn the water into the ditch when it rained.
Cowering inside the bag, Sandy Chipmunk thought the earth was rocking, for he had never ridden in a wagon before.
Although the sack was a stout one, Sandy could easily have gnawed his way through it if he had not been too frightened to try. And there he stayed, while all the time old Ebenezer kept plodding along toward the grist-mill.
Johnnie Green and his grandmother, talking so near him, only alarmed Sandy all the more. And he thought he could not be more scared than he was. But all at once the wagon lurched forward and Grandmother Green screamed. And Johnnie began to cry "Whoa! whoa!" in a loud voice.
Then Sandy Chipmunk began to shake harder than ever. He had no idea what was happening.
XIV
A LUCKY ACCIDENT
It was really no wonder that Johnnie Green"s grandmother screamed, when she and Johnnie and Sandy Chipmunk were on their way to the miller"s to get the wheat ground into flour.
This was what made the good old lady scream: The ancient horse, Ebenezer, was picking his way slowly down a steep hill, placing one foot carefully in front of another, and taking pains not to step on the stones in the road, so he wouldn"t fall.
What happened was not Ebenezer"s fault at all. You see, he was wearing an old harness. And just as he was on the steepest part of the hill a strap broke and the wagon rolled right upon his heels.
Now, many horses would have kicked and run, if such a thing had happened to them. But even when Johnnie"s grandmother screamed, old Ebenezer was not at all frightened. And even when Johnnie cried "Whoa! whoa!" Ebenezer did not stop. He thought he knew a good deal more about what he ought to do than Johnnie Green did, for he had been pulling a wagon for almost twenty years before Johnnie Green was born.
Johnnie tugged hard upon the reins. But still old Ebenezer went on picking his way even more slowly. And he never stopped until he reached the bottom of the hill. Then he stood stock still; and he looked around at Johnnie Green, as if to say, "There, young man! I"ve brought you and your grandma safe down that hill. And _now_ I"ll let you get out of the wagon, if you want to."
Well, Johnnie Green jumped down from his seat and looked at the harness.
"Dear me!" his grandmother said. "If we only had a piece of string you could mend the harness so we could get to the miller"s, at least."
Johnnie felt in all his pockets. And probably that was the first time he had ever found himself without plenty of string. There were enough other things in his pockets--a jackknife and nails, an apple and a lump of maple sugar, an old broken watch and a willow whistle. But not a single piece of string could Johnnie Green find.
Then he happened to think of the string his father had used to tie up the sack of wheat. Johnnie stood the sack on end, tipped it against the back of the seat, so the wheat wouldn"t fall out, and unwound the string from the mouth of the bag.