He gathered other food, too, besides nuts and grain. Near Farmer Green's house he found some plump sunflower seeds, which he added to his store. Then there were wild-cherry pits, too, which the birds had dropped upon the ground. All these, and many other kinds of food, found their way into Sandy Chipmunk's home.
Much as he liked such things to eat—and especially sunflower seeds—he never ate a single nut or grain or seed while he gathered them for his winter's food. And when you stop to remember that he had to carry everything home in his mouth, you can see that Sandy Chipmunk had what is called self-control.
His mother had always told him that he couldn't get through a winter without that. And so, when Sandy brought her to see his new home, after it was all finished, and his bed was neatly made, and his storeroom full of food, Mrs. Chipmunk was delighted.
"I'm glad to see—" she said—"I'm glad to see that all my talking has done some good."
VI
SAMPLES OF WHEAT
There was so much said about Sandy Chipmunk's store of nuts and grain that a few of the forest-people began to wish they had some of Sandy's winter food for themselves. Uncle Sammy Coon, an old scamp who lived over near the swamp, was one of those who began to plan to get Sandy's hoard away from him.
It was the grain that Uncle Sammy wanted. If he had spent in honest work one-half the time he used in planning some trickery he would have been much better off. But he hated work more than anything else in the world.
Uncle Sammy Coon scarcely slept at all for several days, he was so busy thinking about Sandy's grain. And since he always passed his nights in wandering through the woods, he became almost ill.
The trouble was, Uncle Sammy was far too big to crawl inside Sandy's house. And he knew that the only way he could get at the grain was to persuade somebody to bring it outside for him.