have a grand frolic together. But this morning the Merry Little
Breezes hadn't come over to the old stone wall where Striped Chipmunk
makes his home. Anyway, they hadn't come at the usual time. Striped
Chipmunk had waited a little while and then, because he was feeling so
good, he had decided to take a run down the Long Lane to see if anything
new had happened there. That is how it happened that when one of the
Merry Little Breezes did go to look for him, and was terribly anxious to
ask him to come to the help of Grandfather Frog, he was nowhere to be
found.

But Striped Chipmunk didn't know anything about that. He scampered
along the top rails of the old fence, jumped up on top of a post, and
sat up to wash his face and hands, for Striped Chipmunk is very neat and
cannot bear to be the least bit dirty. He looked up and winked at Ol'
Mistah Buzzard, sailing round and round way, way up in the blue, blue
sky. He chased his own tail round and round until he nearly fell off of
the post. He made a wry face in the direction of Redtail the Hawk, whom
he could see sitting in the top of a tall tree way over on the Green
Meadows. He scolded Bowser the Hound, who happened to come trotting up
the Long Lane, and didn't stop scolding until Bowser was out of sight.
Then he kicked up his heels and whisked along the old fence again.

Half-way across a shaky old rail, he suddenly stopped. His bright eyes
had seen something that filled him with curiosity, quite as much
curiosity as Peter Rabbit would have had. It was a piece of string. Yes,
Sir, it was a piece of string. Now Striped Chipmunk often had found
pieces of string, so there was nothing particularly interesting in the
string itself. What did interest him and make him very curious was the
fact that this piece of string kept moving. Every few seconds it gave a
little jerk. Whoever heard of a piece of string moving all by itself?
Certainly Striped Chipmunk never had. He couldn't understand it.

For a few minutes he watched it from the top rail of the old fence. Then
he scurried down to the ground and, a few steps at a time, stopping to
watch sharply between each little run, he drew nearer and nearer to that
queer acting string. It gave him a funny feeling inside to see a string
acting like that, so he was very careful not to get too near. He looked
at it from one side, then ran around and looked at it from the other
side. At last he got where he could see that one end of the string