results are the same until the man who hates and
despises the poets shouts out with glee and exclaims: "_Them's_
my sentiments!" when you throw out with fervor such lines as:

Oh! the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock
Of the plunge in a pool's living water...
How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!

While all the conventional amusements are provided at Tahoe Tavern a
large number of the guests, like myself, find much pleasure in feeding
and making friends with the chipmunks, which have been so fostered
and befriended that there are _scores_ of them, most of them so
fearless as to climb into the laps, eat from the hands, run over the
shoulders, and even explore the pockets of those who bring nuts
and other dainties for their delectation. Children and adults,
even gray-haired grandpas and grandmas, love these tiny morsels
of animation, with their quick, active, nervous movements, their
simulations of fear and their sudden bursts of half-timorous
confidence. With big black eyes, how they squat and watch, or stand,
immovable on their hind legs, their little forepaws held as if in
petition, solemnly, seriously, steadily watch, watch, watching,
until they are satisfied either that you are all right, or are to be
shunned. For, with a whisk of the tail, they either dart towards
you, or run in the other direction and hide in the brush, climb with
amazing speed up a tree, or rush into their holes in the ground.

Some of them are such babies that they cannot be many months old, and
they feel the friendly atmosphere into which they have been born. And
it is an interesting sight to see a keen, stern, active business man
from "the city" saunter with his wife after lunch or dinner, sit down
on the steps leading down to the water's edge, or on a tree stump,
or squat down on his haunches anywhere on the walk, the lawn, or the
veranda, fish some nuts out of his pocket and begin to squeak with his
lips to attract the chipmunks. Sometimes it is a learned advocate of
the law, or a banker, or a wine-merchant, or the manager of a large
commission-house. It seems to make no difference. The "chips" catch
them all, and every one delights in making friends with them.

Here is a tiny little chap, watching me as I loll on the stairs. His
black, twinkling eye fixes itself on m