Farmer Green’s wife had noticed that the flour
in her flour-barrel was getting low. So one morning
Farmer Green pulled a wagon from under a shed and
set a big bag of wheat in it, behind the seat.
Then he went into the house to get a piece of string
with which to tie the bag. Farmer Green hadn’t
seen a pair of bright eyes that were watching him from
the fence near-by. And he didn’t know that
as soon as he started to cross the barnyard, Sandy
Chipmunk stole up to the wagon, climbed into it, and
crept inside the open bag of wheat.
Now, Sandy had not had his breakfast. So he began
at once to eat heartily of the wheat kernels, believing
that after he had had a good meal it would be time
enough to think of carrying some of the wheat away
to his house. He only hoped that no one would
take the bag away until he had removed all
the wheat. There was enough of it—he
was sure—to last him for any number of
winters.
Now, you must not think that Sandy was greedy, because
he wanted all that wheat. He intended all the
time to leave the bag for Farmer Green.
The wheat tasted so good that Sandy Chipmunk could
think of nothing else. So he never heard Johnnie
Green’s father when he came back from the house.
And before Sandy knew what was happening, Farmer Green
had reached into the wagon, drawn the mouth of the
bag together, and tied it hard and fast.
There was Sandy Chipmunk, inside the bag. And
he was so frightened that he couldn’t eat another
mouthful. He just shivered and shook, while Farmer
Green went into the barn, led out an old, slow horse
called Ebenezer, and harnessed him to the wagon.
Then Johnnie Green and his grandmother came out and
seated themselves in the wagon. Farmer Green
gave Johnnie the reins; and Ebenezer started jogging
down the road toward the miller’s, with Johnnie’s
old straw hat and his grandmother’s sunbonnet
bobbing from side to side, and up and down, and backwards
and forwards, as the wagon jolted over ruts and stones
and thank-you-ma’ams—which were small
ridges built across the road, to turn the water into
the ditch when it rained.
Cowering inside the bag, Sandy Chipmunk thought the
earth was rocking, for he had never ridden in a wagon
before.
Although the sack was a stout one, Sandy could easily
have gnawed his way through it if he had not been
too frightened to try. And there he stayed, while
all the time old Ebenezer kept plodding along toward
the grist-mill.
Johnnie Green and his grandmother, talking so near
him, only alarmed Sandy all the more. And he
thought he could not be more scared than he was.
But all at once the wagon lurched forward and Grandmother
Green screamed. And Johnnie began to cry “Whoa!
whoa!” in a loud voice.
Then Sandy Chipmunk began to shake harder than ever.
He had no idea what was happening.
A LUCKY ACCIDENT
