Lola and the others looked, and saw a pretty striped chipmunk, a little animal something like a squirrel. The chipmunk was sitting up on the flat stump, and, held in its paws, was the missing jam tart. Mr. Chipmunk was eating away as fast as he could at Lola’s tart, and he seemed to like it. He didn’t mind in the least that she had taken a bite out of it. Though of course I suppose he would rather have had a whole one.
“There is the burglar who took your tart, Lola!” said Mrs. Martin.
“Oh, did he come up here when I wasn’t looking and take it?” asked the little girl who was visiting the Curlytops.
“That’s just what he did. The chipmunks in these woods are very tame,” said Mrs. Martin. “I have heard campers say they would sometimes jump up on the table and take pieces of bread. The little animals are so pretty and harmless that no one hurts them, so they grow bolder and bolder. Next time put your jam tart down in front of you, and then you can shoo the chipmunk away if he comes after it.”
“Maybe I won’t have any more jam tarts,” said Lola.
“Oh, yes, I have some more in another box,” answered Mrs. Martin, with a laugh. “But watch out for chipmunks!”
And they did, after that. They watched the one that had taken Lola’s tart as it sat on the stump eating it until Trouble laughed so hard at the queer motions of the striped animal that Mr. Chipmunk seemed not to like it, and away he scampered, carrying what was left of the tart with him.
There was no other accident to the rest of the picnic lunch, except that a lot of ants crawled on a piece of bread and sugar that Trouble laid down for a moment, and some bees buzzed around when Mrs. Martin brought out a can of peaches. But the bees stung no one, and Trouble said the ants could have his bread.
The dishes were put away—there was no lunch itself left, you may be sure—and when the crumbs had been brushed into a little pile for the birds, and the scattered papers piled under a rock so they would not blow about and make the woods untidy, Ted looked down toward Silver Lake and cried:
“Here comes Uncle Ben!”