Cute Animals

As an eleven-year-old child, Ms. Nichols' family bought a small farm on the edge of a lake in north Wisconsin for vacations.  Except for a few bears, wildlife of every variety existed in large numbers and the young lady tried to tame them.  She succeeded with many, not all, of the fish.  She could put her hand in the water, and they would expect bread.  "These pets were interesting, of course, but they did not quite satisfy," she writes, "so I turned naturally to the chipmunks and gophers, so numerous all over north Wisconsin.  With them I began a series of friendships that, renewed summers after summer, gave endless joy" ("Into the Land of the Chipmunk," Ruth Alexander Nichols, National Geographic Magazine, July, 1931, p. 81). 

The girl wanted to photograph some of her chipmunk friends.  They were quick and she became frustrated. "In exasperation one day, I snapped my fingers at one little scamp and shouted, 'Stand still, you rascal!'  No one had ever spoken that way to him before.  He stopped, most surprised, and I got my picture" (photo caption, p. 83).

I agree with Ms. Nichols that "Only a person with the unlimited leisure and patience of a child could ever reached the degree of comradeship that I proceeded to establish" (p. 84).  Those little fellows run like lightning!

Ms. Nichols distinguishes chipmunks from gophers and prairie dogs.  "The racial characteristics of these three groups of the squirrel family are as different as their appearance.  The little four-striped chipmunks are the sprightliest, merriest, most lovable, and most intelligent" (p. 87).

The chipmunks had different personalities. The larger ones bullied the smaller ones but the smaller ones were faster.  "The small animals stand in deadly fear of the bloodsucking weasel.  Summoned to the feeding station one morning by a violent, high-pitched squeaking, I broke up a fight between a large chipmunk and a weasel" (p. 97).

I wish I could personally thank Ms. Nichols for her delightful article.  She concludes, "It is quite, quite, hopeless to paint in words the merry twinkle of their eyes, the fascinating humanness and sauciness of their ways" (p. 99).  From now on, I'm going to enjoy the chipmunk families in my yard so much more when they scurry along the length of a horizontal fence plank, or dare to snack on a patio peach!