softly. The more slow and rhythmical your tattoo the sooner he is
charmed. Presently he comes down closer and closer, his eyes
filled with strange wonder. More than once I have had a chipmunk
come to my hand and rest upon it, looking everywhere for the
queer sound that brought him down, forgetting fright and
cornfield and coming winter in his bright curiosity.

Meeko is a bird of another color. He never trusts you nor anybody
else fully, and his curiosity is generally of the vulgar, selfish
kind. When the autumn woods are busy places, and wings flutter
and little feet go pattering everywhere after winter supplies, he
also begins garnering, remembering the hungry days of last
winter. But he is always more curious to see what others are
doing than to fill his own bins. He seldom trusts to one
storehouse--he is too suspicious for that--but hides his things
in twenty different places; some shagbarks in the old wall, a
handful of acorns in a hollow tree, an ear of corn under the
eaves of the old barn, a pint of chestnuts scattered about in the
trees, some in crevices in the bark, some in a pine crotch
covered carefully with needles, and one or two stuck firmly into
the splinters of every broken branch that is not too conspicuous.
But he never gathers much at a time. The moment he sees anybody
else gathering he forgets his own work and goes spying to see
where others are hiding their store. The little chipmunk, who
knows his thieving and his devices, always makes one turn, at
least, in the tunnel to his den too small for Meeko to follow.

He sees a blue jay flitting through the woods, and knows by his
unusual silence that he is hiding things. Meeko follows after
him, stopping all his jabber and stealing from tree to tree,