"Hippy hop! Flippy flop! All on a summer day  
My mother turned me from the house and sent me out to play!"
 
Striped Chipmunk knew perfectly well that that was just nonsense, but Striped Chipmunk learned a long time ago that when you are just bubbling right over with good feeling, there is fun in saying and doing foolish things, and that is just how he was feeling. So he ran along the old rail fence on one side of the Long Lane, saying foolish things and cutting up foolish capers just because he felt so good, and all the time seeing all that those bright little eyes of his could take in.
 
Now Striped Chipmunk and the Merry Little Breezes of Old Mother West Wind are great friends, very great friends, indeed. Almost every morning they 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 pi............