And while Uncle Sammy was looking for nutmegs, Sandy Chipmunk slyly took six more ears from the basket. He had more corn now than he could carry. So he quickly tossed it out through the doorway.
[Illustration: Uncle Sammy Searched His Shelves Carefully]
Uncle Sammy Coon had to admit at last that he had no nutmegs. But Sandy kept him busy hunting for almonds and Brazil nuts and pecans, though he knew well enough that nothing of the sort grew in those woods.
By the time Uncle Sammy stopped looking there was no more corn left in his basket. But there was a great pile of corn on the ground just outside his door, where Sandy Chipmunk had thrown it.
Then Sandy said he must be going. And long before Uncle Sammy stirred out of his house Sandy had carried the corn away and hid it in a good, safe place. He thought that if he left it to dry it would make just as good food for winter as the wheat Uncle Sammy had eaten. And that was just what happened.
That night, long after Sandy Chipmunk had left the store, Uncle Sammy Coon had a great surprise. When he went to the basket, to get some green corn for his supper, there was not a single ear there.
"That's queer!" Uncle Sammy Coon exclaimed. "It was full this afternoon. And now there's not an ear left. I don't remember eating it." He thought deeply for a long time. And after a while he said to himself: "I wonder if it could have been that Chipmunk boy?" But he decided that Sandy was too small to have carried away all those big ears under his very nose. "I must have eaten it," he told himself. "I'm getting terribly forgetful."
And since he thought he had already had his supper, Uncle Sammy Coon went to bed without any supper at all.