Gardening has its disappointments, its seasons of despair,—and wrath, too. Had a toad showed himself at that moment he would have fared badly. I snatched a stone and let it go at a robin flying over, for more than likely it was he who had stolen my berries. On the garden wall sat a friendly chipmunk eyeing me sympathetically. Three days later several fine berries were ripe. On my way to the garden I passed the chipmunks in the orchard. A shining red spot among the vine-covered stones of their wall brought me to a stop, for I thought, on the instant, that it was my rose-breasted grosbeak, and that I was about to get a clue to its nest. Then up to the slab where he ate the June-bugs scrambled the chipmunk, and the rose-red spot on the breast of the grosbeak dissolved into a big scarlet-red strawberry. And by its long wedge shape I knew it was one of my new variety. I hurried across to the patch and found every berry gone, while a line of bloody fragments led me back to the orchard wall, where a half dozen fresh calyx crowns completed my second discovery. No, it did not complete it. It took a little watching to find out that the whole family—all seven!—were after berries. They were picking them half ripe, even, and actually storing them away, canning them down in the cavernous depths of the stone pile! Alarmed? Yes, and I was wrathful, too. The taste for strawberries is innate, original; you can’t be human without it. But joy in chipmunks is a cultivated liking, æsthetic in its nature. What chance in such a circumstance has the nature-lover with the human man? What shadow of doubt as to his choice between the chipmunks and the strawberries? I had no gun then and no time to go over to my neighbor’s to borrow his. So I stationed myself near by with a fistful of stones, and waited for the thieves to show themselves. I came so near to hitting one of them once that the sweat started all over me. After that there was no danger. I lost my nerve. The little scamps knew that war was declared, and they hid and dodged and sighted me so far off that even with a gun I should have been all summer killing the seven of them. Meantime, a big rain and the warm June days were turning the berries red by the quart. They had more than caught up to the squirrels. I dropped my stones and picked. The squirrels picked, too, so did the toads and robins. Everybody picked. It was free for all. We picked them and ate them, jammed them and canned them. I almost carried some over to my neighbor, but took peas instead. You simply can’t give your strawberries in New England to ordinary neighbors, who are not of your choosing. You have no fears at all as to what they will say to your peas. The season closed on the Fourth of July, and our taste was not dim nor this natural love for strawberries abated; but all four of the small boys had the hives from over-indulgence, so bountifully did nature provide, so many did the seven chipmunks leave us!