"My, my!" she said. "How hungry you must be! Here--you just take this basket and go right home and have a good meal. I live "way over there under the hill. And you can bring my basket home to-night."
Billy Woodchuck thanked her. He felt somewhat ashamed to take the peas and lettuce and apples and clover-heads. But he remembered it was only a _game_. And Jimmy Rabbit had said it was all right.
Old Aunt Polly Woodchuck trudged back to the garden again. And Billy hurried back to the place where Jimmy Rabbit was waiting.
"See what I"ve brought!" he said proudly. "Now you take hold of the other side of the basket and we"ll carry it home to my mother."
"I wouldn"t do that if I were you," said Jimmy Rabbit.
"Why not?" asked Billy.
"Well--I just wouldn"t. I forgot to remember that it"s bad luck not to sit right down and eat whatever"s given you like this. And you don"t want to have bad luck."
Billy Woodchuck was sure he didn"t.
"All right, then!" said Jimmy Rabbit. "And they say it"s bad luck if you leave a single sc.r.a.p uneaten. So I"ll sit down too, and help you."
[Ill.u.s.tration: She Took Hold of Billy"s Ear]
IX
AT AUNT POLLY"S
After Jimmy Rabbit and Billy Woodchuck had eaten the very last goody in old Aunt Polly Woodchuck"s basket, Jimmy said that he must hurry away at once.
"Don"t you want to go with me while I take her basket home?" Billy asked him.
"I"d like to; but I can"t," said Jimmy. "The basket"s light, anyway. You won"t have any trouble carrying it." And that was the truth. "If you want to play beggar again to-morrow, perhaps I can meet you here once more," Jimmy added. "I"m always glad to help a friend, you know." And then he hopped away.
Billy Woodchuck trotted over to Aunt Polly"s house under the hill.
He hoped the old lady hadn"t reached home yet, for he was afraid she might know who he was the next time she saw him.
Luckily she had not returned. And Billy left the basket just outside the door of her sitting-room and was hurrying back through her neat tunnel, when he heard voices.
And sure enough, as he crawled out of Aunt Polly"s front door, there sat the old lady herself. And with her was Billy"s own mother, who had come over to pay a call upon Aunt Polly and ask after her rheumatism.
"Well, if here isn"t that poor little lad right now!" Aunt Polly exclaimed, the minute she saw Billy Woodchuck. "He"s just after bringing home my basket, I know." She had been telling Billy"s mother about the starving youngster she had found.
"So this is the young beggar, is it?" Mrs. Woodchuck said. "I must say he looks very fat for a person who has had nothing to eat for a week."
Aunt Polly felt of Billy"s pudgy sides.
"Dearie me! He doesn"t seem thin, exactly," she agreed. "But you must remember he has just had one good meal."
"No doubt!" said Mrs. Woodchuck. "And it"s the fourth, at least, that he"s had to-day."
"You don"t say so! You know him, then?" asked Aunt Polly.
"I"m ashamed to say I do," Mrs. Woodchuck answered. "I never thought I should be the mother of a beggar. But I see that I am. It can"t be helped this time. But I know how to keep it from happening again." She took hold of Billy"s ear. "Come home with me, young man," she said.
Billy Woodchuck began to whimper.
"It was just a game!" he cried. "We were only playing. We were having fun."
"_We?_ How many were there of you?" his mother asked.
"Two of us--me and Jimmy Rabbit!"
Mrs. Woodchuck was too upset to notice that Billy said _me_ when he ought to have said _I_.
"I"d like to have Jimmy Rabbit"s ear in my other hand," she told Aunt Polly.
X
UNCLE JERRY CHUCK
Not only Mr. Woodchuck, but his friends as well, were angry with Billy, because he forgot to whistle a warning to them, when dog Spot caught them in the clover-patch. And whenever they met Billy Woodchuck anywhere they would scold at him, and tell him that he was a heedless, careless boy.
"It will be a long time before you have another chance to be a sentinel and listen for danger," Uncle Jerry Chuck told him.
After he heard that, there was nothing that Billy wanted to do so much as to stand guard again. Before, he had been happy and contented. But now that he learned that there was something he mightn"t do he knew he should never be satisfied until he did it.
Every day Billy went to one of his father"s friends and asked him if he didn"t want somebody to listen for him. But they all told him that he was a good-for-nothing rascal and bade him be off.
Finally Billy went to Uncle Jerry Chuck"s house and fairly begged the old gentleman to let him do some listening.
The sly old gentleman had been waiting for just that thing. He was very fond of taking naps in the sunshine and he wanted to find some youngster like Billy, with sharp ears, to stay near him while he slept and waken him in case some enemy should see him.
Now, if Uncle Jerry had been willing to pay them, he might have found plenty of first-cla.s.s listeners. But he was stingy. He was always trying to get something for nothing. And now he said to Billy:
"I"ll give you just one more chance. Maybe you learned a lesson down in the clover-patch. Perhaps you won"t forget to remember to whistle, after what happened that time."
"No, Uncle Jerry!" said Billy Woodchuck. He was very polite. "When may I begin?" he asked.
"Right now!" Uncle Jerry told him. "Come with me, up on top of the big rock." And he walked off at once, with Billy at his side.
"But there"s nothing for you to eat there," said Billy.
"Eat?" Uncle Jerry exclaimed. "I"m not going to eat. I"m going to _sleep_."
So Uncle Jerry Chuck went to sleep on top of the big rock. All the time he slept, Billy Woodchuck sat upon his hind legs and listened with all his might and main. But his sharp ears caught no hint of danger.