The big cat slid down the big ba.s.swood tree and when he came to the ground, he saw Mister Gabriel Chipmunk sitting on top of his old home stump shouting "Chip! Chip!" as loudly as he could scream.

"Ho! Ho!" said the Maltese cat, "there is a striped squirrel for my breakfast!" and the big cat tiptoed towards Mister Gabriel Chipmunk. But Mister Chipmunk was watching the big cat all the while, and he was all ready to jump into his hole.

Somewhere in the woods a twig snapped, and Robert Robin looked and saw an animal coming through the woods. It was a big bulldog, and he was out for a walk.

The big bulldog did not like cats, and if there was any one thing which he liked to do, it was to chase cats. He did like to see them run.

When he saw the farmer's big Maltese cat, he said "Woof!" and the big cat forgot all about Mister Chipmunk, and forgot all about Robert Robin, and ran for the fence.

"Woof! Woof!" roared the bulldog. "Pstt! Pstt!" said the cat, and the cat jumped through the fence, and the dog jumped through the fence, and the cat jumped back through the fence, and the dog jumped back through the fence, and then the cat ran up an elm tree which stood outside the woods, and the big bulldog put both of his front paws against the tree, and said "Woof! Woof! Woof!" Then the dog sat down and barked at the cat, and the cat laid his ears back close to his head and growled at the dog.

The big bulldog laughed and showed all his teeth and said, "Come down and take a walk, Kitty! Come down and take a walk, Kitty!" Then the dog sat down and waited three hours for the cat to come down.

The farmer's Maltese cat did not like to stay in the elm tree. The sun was hot and some little flies kept trying to get into his ears, but the dog was sitting in the shade, and he was thinking to himself, "That cat will come down soon, and then I will give him another race! I do enjoy seeing those fraidy cats run!"

Robert Robin did not like to have the farmer's cat anywhere around, and he kept saying "Tut! Tut! Tut!" but Mrs. Robin went and got the baby robins their breakfasts.

The sun kept getting hotter and hotter, and the farmer's big cat kept getting warmer and warmer. "I shall roast in this tree!" he said to himself. "This is the last time that I will ever come into these woods!

I had no idea that a big bulldog lived here!"

After a long time the big bulldog happened to remember a bone which he had buried in the garden, and the more he thought about the bone, the hungrier he became, so at last he looked up at the farmer's Maltese cat and said:

"Woof! The next time I see you, Kitty! The next time I see you, Kitty!"

And the farmer's Maltese cat growled at the big bulldog and said, "If my dog was here he would eat you up!"

Then Mister Bulldog laughed and showed all his teeth and said, "The next time I see you, Kitty!" And then he went back to the place where he was visiting and dug up the bone, and it was even better than he had expected.

When the dog had gone, the farmer's Maltese cat slid down the elm tree and ran all the way home, and found that the farmer's long-eared hound dog had eaten all the breakfast which the farmer's wife had put in the cat dish.

And Mister Robert Robin said to Mrs. Robin: "I hope that nice bulldog stays all summer!"

And every time the farmer's big Maltese cat looked at the woods he said to himself, "That is the place where that bulldog lives!"

CHAPTER V

ROBERT ROBIN SINGS HIS CHERRY SONG

Robert Robin was very happy. The cherries were ripe, and from the top of his tall ba.s.swood tree he could see dozens of cherry trees laden with the ripe, red fruit.

The little robins were very fond of cherries, and they never forgot to pop the pits, so that under Robert Robin's ba.s.swood tree there were soon great quant.i.ties of cherry pits.

One day the farmer and his hired man were coming through the woods, and they saw the cherry pits scattered around under the big ba.s.swood.

"Look at those cherry pits!" said the hired man.

"Those are not cherry pits, they are ba.s.swood bobs!" said the farmer.

"No! They are cherry pits!" said the hired man.

"Ha! Ha!" laughed the farmer. "Cherries do not grow on ba.s.swood trees!"

"I guess that I know a cherry pit when I see one!" said the hired man.

"And if those are not cherry pits, I'll fry my mittens and eat 'em for supper!"

"The trouble with you, Hank, is that you are never willing to give up when you are wrong!" said the farmer. "How could so many cherry pits be under a ba.s.swood tree?"

Just then, one of the baby robins "popped" a pit, and the little cherry stone rattled against the branches of the ba.s.swood and fell to the ground near the hired man's feet.

The farmer picked it up and said: "Now, look here, Hank! There is no use of your standing there and telling me that that is a cherry pit, when both of us saw it drop off that ba.s.swood! Cherry pits don't drop off ba.s.swood trees, and for you to try to tell me that I don't know the difference between a cherry tree and a ba.s.swood tree is going just a little bit too far!"

"Maybe you're right!" said the hired man.

"There ain't no 'maybe' about it!" said the farmer. "I am most generally right when it comes to understanding nature!"

"All except when you pulled up that poison ivy, barehanded!" said the hired man, and both of them laughed, and the farmer said:

"Those ba.s.swood bobs did look so much like cherry pits, that they would have fooled anybody but an expert!"

And the hired man said: "They looked so much like cherry pits that the next time I am over this way, I am going to get some of them, and plant 'em in a box and raise me a cherry orchard!"

After the farmer and his hired man had gone, Mister Gabriel Chipmunk came out from under his old home stump. Mister Chipmunk was worried. He did not know what he was going to have to eat next winter.

So he sat on top of his old home stump and tried to think where he could find something to put in his granary bins.

Jeremiah Yellowbird sat in a bush near by, and when he saw Mister Chipmunk keeping so still, he said to him:

"What makes you so quiet to-day, Mister Chipmunk?"

"I am worried about what I will have to eat next winter, Mister Yellowbird! There are no beechnuts, this year, the wild-pea crop is a failure, the farmer has no fields of grain near my woods, and I have not seen a groundnut for six seasons!"

"Can't you find something to take the place of those things?" asked Mister Yellowbird.

"If the country was what it used to be, I would not worry a bit. But every year it gets worse and worse! Why, last winter, Mrs. Chipmunk and I had a miserable time living through the winter on wild buckwheat! My grandfather would have starved rather than eat wild buckwheat! And he would have starved, all right, if he had boarded at our house last winter, for wild buckwheat was all that we had! Imagine me, the monarch of all the woods, living on wild buckwheat!"

"Are you the monarch of the woods, Mister Chipmunk?" asked Jeremiah Yellowbird.

"I would like to know who has a better right to be called the 'monarch of the woods,'" said Gabriel Chipmunk. "When I sit on my old home stump and say 'Chip! Chip! Chip!' everyone knows that I am taking care of the woods, and if I did not keep a sharp lookout when men, and dogs, and cats come around, there would be many lives lost! A monarch is supposed to take care of his realm, and then I have plenty of time to be monarch, and I like the work, so that makes me the 'monarch of the woods.'"

Something fell from the big ba.s.swood tree. It was a cherry pit which one of the baby robins had "popped."

"Was that a nut which fell from the big ba.s.swood?" asked Gabriel Chipmunk. But Jeremiah Yellowbird did not know, so Mister Chipmunk hurried over to see, and when Gabriel Chipmunk saw all the nice cherry pits scattered on the ground under the big ba.s.swood, he was very much pleased, for Gabriel Chipmunk and all his folks liked cherry pits.

Mister Chipmunk filled his two big pockets with the nice cherry pits, and ran for home as fast as his little legs would carry him.