The Tale of Billy Woodchuck.
by Arthur Scott Bailey.
I
THE HOUSE IN THE PASTURE
One day, when Johnnie Green tramped over the fields toward the woods, he did not dream that he walked right over somebody"s bedroom. The snow was deep, for it was midwinter. And as Johnnie crossed his father"s pasture he thought only of the fresh rabbit tracks that he saw all about him. He had no way of knowing that beneath the three feet of snow, and as much further below the top of the ground too, there was a snug, cozy little room, where Mr.
and Mrs. Woodchuck lay sound asleep on a bed of dried gra.s.s.
They had been there all winter, asleep like that. And there they would stay, until spring came and the gra.s.s began to grow again.
In summer Johnnie Green was always on the watch for woodchucks. But now he never gave them a thought. There would be time enough for that after the snow was gone and the chucks came crawling out of their underground houses to enjoy the warm sunshine.
Usually it happened in just that way, though there had been years when Mr. and Mrs. Woodchuck had awakened too soon. And then when they reached the end of the long tunnel that led from their bedroom into Farmer Green"s pasture they found that they had to dig their way through a snow-bank before they reached the upper world where Johnnie Green lived.
But this year their winter"s nap came to a close at just the right time. A whole month had pa.s.sed since Johnnie walked over their house. And now when they popped their heads out of their front door they saw that the snow was all gone and that the sun was shining brightly. Almost the first thing they did was to nibble at the tender young gra.s.s that grew in their dooryard.
When you stop to remember that neither of them had had so much as a single mouthful of food since long before Thanksgiving Day you will understand how hungry they were.
They were very thin, too. But every day they grew a little fatter.
And when at last Johnnie Green pa.s.sed that way again, late one afternoon, to drive the cows home to be milked, he thought that Mrs. Woodchuck looked quite well.
She looked happy, too, just before Johnnie came along. But now she had a worried air. And it was no wonder, either. For she had five new children, only a few weeks old, and she was afraid that Johnnie would take them away from her.
Poor, frightened Mrs. Woodchuck ran round and round her five youngsters, to keep them all together. And all the time she urged them nearer and nearer the door of her house.
Johnnie was already late about getting the cows. But he waited to see what happened. And soon he saw all five of the little chucks scramble through the doorway. And as soon as the last one was safely inside the old lady jumped in after her children.
That last one was the biggest of all the young chucks. Perhaps it was because he always ate twice as much as any of his brothers and sisters. His mother found him harder to manage, too; and she had to push him along through the doorway, because he wanted to stop and s.n.a.t.c.h a bite from a juicy plantain.
That was Billy Woodchuck--that fat, strong youngster. Even then Johnnie Green knew that he was going to be a big fellow when he grew up.
II
CALLING NAMES
Billy Woodchuck grew so fast that he soon looked very much like his father. Of course, he was still much smaller than Mr. Woodchuck.
But like him, Billy was quite gray; and he had whiskers, too--though, to be sure, those were black. His eyes also were black and large and bright. When Billy sat up on his hind legs--as he often did--he appeared for all the world like a huge squirrel.
In fact, some of Billy"s friends remarked how like a squirrel he looked. And one day when Billy was playing near the edge of the woods a disagreeable young hedgehog told him that. To tell the truth, Billy Woodchuck had grown to be the least bit vain. He loved to gaze upon his bushy tail; and he spent a good deal of time stroking his whiskers. He hoped that the neighbors had noticed them.
Now, other people are always quick to see when anyone is silly in that way. And the young hedgehog thought that Billy Woodchuck needed taking down a peg. So he said to him:
"Why don"t you join the circus?"
"Circus? What"s that?" Billy asked.
"A circus is a place where they have all kinds of freaks," the hedgehog answered with a sly smile--"giants and dwarfs, and thin people and fat people."
"But I"m not a freak," Billy Woodchuck replied. "Of course, I"m big for my age. But I"m not a giant."
"Yes, you are," the hedgehog insisted.
"You"re a giant squirrel. You look like _him_"--he pointed to a young fellow called Frisky Squirrel--"only you"re ever so much bigger."
That made Billy Woodchuck very angry. And he began to chatter and scold.
Wise old Mr. Crow, who sat in a tree nearby, told him to keep his temper.
"Certainly you are not a squirrel," he said. "It is nonsense to say that a ground hog is the same as a squirrel----"
Billy Woodchuck"s voice broke into a shrill scream. A _ground hog_!
He was terribly angry.
"Why, yes!" Mr. Crow said, nodding his head with a knowing air.
"You"re a marmot, you know."
"No, I"m not!" Billy cried. "I"m a woodchuck! That"s what I am. And I"m going home and tell my mother what horrid names you"ve been calling me."
Mr. Crow laughed. He said nothing more. But as Billy hurried away he could hear the young hedgehog calling:
"Ground hog! Marmot! Ground hog! Marmot!" over and over again.
Billy Woodchuck was surprised to see how calm his mother was when he told her those horrid names. He had rather expected that she would hurry over to the woods and say a few things to that young hedgehog, and to old Mr. Crow as well. But she only said:
"Don"t be silly! Of course you"re a ground hog. You"re an American marmot, too. Though our family has been known in this neighborhood for many years as the Woodchuck family, you needn"t be ashamed of either of those other names. Isn"t "ground hog" every bit as good a name as "hedgehog?""
Billy Woodchuck began to think it was. And as for "marmot"--that began to have quite a fine sound in his ears.
"Why can"t we change our name to that?" he asked his mother.
But Mrs. Woodchuck shook her head.
"We are plain country people," she said. "Woodchuck is the best name for us."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Just Crawl Inside that Old Stump!" Mr. Fox Said]
III