house.

Off scampered Striped Chipmunk, and after him stole Happy Jack, his eyes
shining with excitement. Pretty soon he saw an old stump which looked as
if it must be hollow. Happy Jack grinned more than ever as he carefully
hid himself and watched. Striped Chipmunk scrambled up on the old stump,
looked this way and that way, as if to be sure that no one was watching
him, then with a flirt of his funny little tail he darted into a little
round doorway. He was gone a long time, but by and by out he popped,
looked this way and that way, and then scampered off in the direction
from which he had come. Happy Jack didn't try to follow him. He waited
until he was sure that Striped Chipmunk was out of sight and hearing,
and then he walked over to the old stump.

"It's his storehouse fast enough," said Happy Jack.

CHAPTER VIII

HAPPY JACK TURNS BURGLAR

As trees from little acorns, so
Great sums from little pennies grow.

_Happy Jack._

Happy Jack Squirrel stood in front of the old stump into which he had
seen Striped Chipmunk go with the pockets in his cheeks full of acorns,
and out of which he had come with the pockets of his cheeks quite empty.

"It certainly is his storehouse, and now I'll find out if he is the one
who got all those big, fat hickory nuts," muttered Happy Jack.

First he looked this way, and then he looked that way, to be sure that
no one saw him, for what he was planning to do was a very dreadful
thing, and he knew it. Happy Jack was going to turn burglar. A burglar,
you know, is one who breaks into another's house or barn to steal, which
is a very, very dreadful thing to do. Yet this is just what Happy Jack
Squirrel was planning to do. He was going to get into that old stump,
and if those big, fat hickory nuts were there, as he was sure they were,
he was going to take them. He tried very hard to make himself believe
that it wouldn't be stealing. He had watched those nuts in the top of
the tall hickory tree so long that he had grown to think that they
belonged to him. Of course they didn't, but he had made himself think
they did.

Happy Jack walked all around the old stump, and then he climbed up on
top of it. There was only one doorway, and that was the little round
hole through which Striped Chipmunk had entered and then come out. It
was too small for Happy Jack to even get his head through, though his
cousin, Chatterer the Red Squirrel, who is much smaller, could have
sl