"Did you say hay?" he exclaimed.
"Where under the sun does he get hay way up there, and what does
he want of it?"
There was a twinkle in Old Mother Nature's eyes as she replied,
"He makes that hay just as you see Farmer Brown make hay every
summer. It is what he lives on in the winter and in bad weather.
Little Chief knows just as much about the proper way of making hay
as Farmer Brown does. Even way up among the rocks there are places
where grass and peas-vines and other green things grow. Little
Chief lives on these in summer. But he is as wise and thrifty as
any Squirrel, another way in which he differs from the Hare family.
He cuts them when they are ready for cutting and spreads them out
on the rocks to dry in the sun. He knows that if he should take
them down into his barns while they are fresh and green they would
sour and spoil; so he never stores them away until they are
thoroughly dry. Then, of course, they are hay, for hay is nothing
but sun-dried grass cut before it has begun to die. When his hay
is just as dry as it should be, he takes it down and stores it away
in his barns, which are nothing but little caves down in among the
rocks. There he has it for use in winter when there is no green food.
"Little Chief is so nearly the color of the rocks that it takes
sharp eyes to see him when he is sitting still.
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