“There!” he cried, when he had dropped
the grain in front of Uncle Sammy. “Just
try a little of it! You’ll agree with me
that it’s very fine.”
Uncle Sammy not only tried a little. He gobbled
up every single kernel.
“It seems to me to have a queer taste,”
he said. “Bring up some more!”
And Sandy scurried down into his house again, to bob
up in a few moments with another sample of his grain.
Once more Uncle Sammy ate it all.
“It’s a bit damp,” he remarked,
as he smacked his lips. “I hope it’s
not moldy.... You’d better let me see another
sample.”
Uncle Sammy declared the next heap of kernels to be
altogether too dry. And he kept ordering Sandy
to fetch more for him to “taste,” as he
called it. Some of the wheat he considered too
ripe, and some too green. Some of the kernels—so
he said—were too little, and others too
big. And finally he even told Sandy Chipmunk
that he was afraid Sandy was trying to sell him last
year’s wheat.
Now, Sandy knew that his wheat was fresh—all
of it. So he went down and brought up still another
load.
Uncle Sammy ate that more slowly, for by this time
he had had a good meal.
“How do you like it?” Sandy asked him.
“It’s fair,” Uncle Sammy replied.
“But I believe it’s next year’s
wheat. And of course I wouldn’t think of
buying that kind.... I guess I can’t trade
with you, after all.” And he started to
hobble away.
When Sandy heard that, and saw the old fellow leaving,
he began to scold.
“Aren’t you going to pay me for what you’ve
eaten?” he asked.
“What! Pay you for the samples?”
Uncle Sammy asked. “I guess, young man,
you don’t know much about keeping a store.
Nobody ever pays for samples.” And he went
away muttering to himself.
Sandy Chipmunk felt very sad. Uncle Sammy had
eaten half his winter’s supply of wheat.
Sandy was angry, too. And for several days he
was busier than ever, trying to think of some way
in which he could make Uncle Sammy Coon pay him.
UNCLE SAMMY’S STORE
Not long after Uncle Sammy Coon ate half of Sandy
Chipmunk’s wheat without paying for it he seemed
to grow lamer than ever. And he walked less than
ever, too. A good many of the forest-folk said
that he really wasn’t any lamer—but
he was lazier.
However that may have been, he began to stay at home
a good deal of the time. And finally Sandy Chipmunk
heard that Uncle Sammy had opened a store, in which
he kept all sorts of good things to eat.
When Sandy learned that he lost no time in going over
to Uncle Sammy’s house near the swamp.
Sure enough! There he found Uncle Sammy sitting
behind a long table. And behind him were shelves
loaded with apples, pears, corn, nuts and many other
kinds of food.
“I’d like to buy some nuts,” Sandy
Chipmunk told the old gentleman.
