He was particularly polite to chipmunks after that. He would lie still by the hour and hear Jonathan talk to them without even a whine of discontent. I watched the old man one morning up beneath the ledges, groping, on his hands and knees, filling his pockets with nuts, and when he reached the wood road, emptying them in a pile near the chipmunk's tree, George looking on good-naturedly.
"Guess you leetle cunnin's better hurry up," he said, while he poured out the nuts on the ground, his knees sticking up as he sat, like some huge grasshopper's. "Guess ye ain't got more 'n time to fill yer cubbud,—winter's a-comin'! Them leetle birches on Bog-eddy is turnin' yeller,—that's the fust sign. 'Fore ye knows it snow'll be flyin'. Then whar'll ye be with everything froze tighter'n Sampson bound the heathen, you cunnin' leetle skitterin' pups. Then I presaume likely ye'll come a-drulin' raound an' want me an' George should gin ye suthin to git through th' winter on,—won't they, George?"
"Beats all," he said to me that night, "how thoughtful some dogs is. Hadn't been fer George to-day, I'd clean forgot them leetle folks. I see him scratching raound in the leaves an' I knowed right away what he wuz thinkin' of."
Often when I was sketching in the dense forest, Jonathan would lie down beside me, the old flop of a hat under his head, his talk rambling on.
"I don't wonder ye like to paint 'em. Thar hain't nothin' so human as trees. Take thet big hemlock right in front er yer. Hain't he led a pretty decent life? See how praoud an' tall he's growed, with them arms of his'n straight aout an' them leetle chillen of his'n spraouting up raound him. I tell ye them hemlocks is pretty decent people. Now take a look at them two white birches down by thet big rock. Ain't it a shame the way them fellers hez been goin' on sence they wuz leetle saplin's, makin' it so nothin' could grow raound 'em,—with their jackets all ragged an' tore like tramps, an' their toes all out of their shoes whar ther roots is stickin' clear of the bark,—ain't they a-ketchin' it in their ole age? An' then foller on daown whar thet leetle bunch er silver maples is dancin' in the sunlight, so slender an' cunnin',—all aout in their summer dresses, julluk a bevy er young gals,—ain't they human like? I tell ye, trees is the humanest things thet is."
These talks with me made George restless. He was never happy unless Jonathan had him on his mind.
But it was a cluster of daisies that first lifted the inner lid of Jonathan's heart for me. I was away up the side of the Notch overlooking the valley, my easel and canvas lashed to a tree, the wind blew so, when Jonathan came toiling up the slope, a precipice in fact, with a tin can strapped to his back, filled with hot corn and some doughnuts, and threw himself beside me, the sweat running down his weather-tanned neck.
"So long ez we know whar you're settin' at work it ain't nat'ral to let ye starve, be it?" throwing himself beside me. George had started ahead of him and had been picked up and carried as usual.
When Jonathan sat upright, after a breathing spell, his eye fell on a tuft of limp, bruised daisies, flattened to the earth by the heel of his clumsy shoe. There were acres of others in sight.
"Gosh hang!" he said, catching his breath suddenly, as if something had stung him, and reaching down with his horny, bent fingers, "ef thet ain't too bad." Then to himself in a tone barely audible,—he had entirely forgotten my presence,—"You never had no sense, Jonathan, nohow, stumblin' raound like er bull calf tramplin' everything. Jes' see what ye've gone an' done with them big feet er yourn," bending over the bruised plant and tenderly adjusting the leaves. "Them daisies hez got jest ez good a right ter live ez you hev."