WINKIE’S NEW HOME
Just as soon as Winkie felt the pain in her leg, a hard pinching and
pulling, she knew what had happened just as well as if her mother had
told her.
“I’m in a trap!” cried the girl woodchuck, who was not as wily now as
she ought to have been. “I’m in a trap! Oh, dear! What shall I do?”
She had often heard her father and mother talk of animals being caught
in traps. Some traps were of one kind and some of another. Winkie
was glad this was not a box trap, shutting her away from the air and
sunlight. She was glad it was not a bear trap with sharp teeth, like
those of a saw, for they would have cut her leg and caused it to bleed.
This trap was just a common, spring one, with smooth jaws, and though
it pinched Winkie very much, and held her so fast that she could not
pull her leg loose, she was not cut.
“I must run away!” thought poor Winkie. “I must run away and take this
trap with me. Then, maybe, when I am in a safe place, I can pull my leg
out! Oh, how it pinches! I wish I had never tried to get the carrot!”
The little woodchuck no longer thought of the yellow carrot which was
placed near the trap. She seemed to have got over her hunger because of
the pain in her leg.
“Yes, I must run away and take this trap with me!” thought Winkie.
But that was easier said than done. As Winkie tried to walk away, with
the spring trap still fast to her leg, she was suddenly stopped with a
jerk that gave her another pain. She almost fell down, and she had to
cry “Ouch!” Of course, in the way woodchucks say it.
Then she looked and found there was a chain attached to the trap, and
the other end of the chain was fast to a big log. If Winkie should walk
away with the trap, she would also have to drag the log with her. And
this was more than the little woodchuck girl could do.
“Oh dear! Oh dear!” thought poor Winkie, lying down on the soft grass
near the trap. “This is dreadful!”
And indeed it was! It was worse than the blasting in the field which
had closed the door holes of the burrow house. It was worse than Farmer
Tottle and his dog. It was worse than the big storm when the tree in
which Winkie was sleeping had been struck by lightning.
“Oh, what shall I do?” sighed poor Winkie.
Well, there was little she could do. She again tried to pull her leg
out of the trap, but it would not move, and the pain each time she
tried made her chatter her teeth and whistle. Then she tried to pull
the trap loose from the log to which it was chained. But she could not
do that, either.
“Oh, I shall have to stay here forever!” thought poor Winkie. “I never
can get loose! I shall never see Blinkie nor Blunk again, nor my father
and mother! Oh dear!”
Winkie looked at the carrot which was the cause of all her troubles.
Even yet she did not feel hungry enough to nibble it, though just
before she had stepped into the trap she had been very anxious for some
vegetable.
“I must do something!” thought Winkie. “I can’t stay here forever.”
She was just going to tug again at the trap and chain when, all of a
sudden, she heard a noise. It was a whistling sound, almost like that
which woodchucks make. For one happy moment Winkie thought it might be
her father or mother coming to set her free. But a moment later, as the
whistling became louder, Winkie saw coming toward her a boy. It was the
boy who was whistling.
On he came, trilling a merry air. Well might he whistle! He was caught
in no trap that pinched his leg!
Suddenly the boy caught sight of Winkie, the wily woodchuck.
“Oh, ho!” he cried. “I’ve caught a ground-hog! I’ve caught a woodchuck
in my trap! My, but I’m lucky!”
Of course Winkie could not understand what the boy said, but if she
thought anything at all she must have thought that she was very unlucky.
“It’s a nice fat woodchuck, too!” exclaimed Larry Dawson, which was the
boy’s name. “It isn’t hurt, either. I’m glad it’s a smooth trap and not
one with teeth! I set it to catch a skunk, but it caught a woodchuck
instead. I guess she isn’t hurt much. A woodchuck’s fur isn’t any good,
like a skunk’s. But I’ll take this ground-hog home, and maybe I can
tame her and teach her tricks.”
If Winkie could have understood all the boy said she would not have
been so afraid of him, for Larry was a kind boy and gave no needless
pain to animals. But the woodchuck did not understand, and when Larry
came closer, intending to loose her from the trap, she crouched down,
showed her sharp, biting teeth, and squealed and chattered.
“Oh, ho! You’re going to be ugly, are you?” exclaimed the boy. “Well,
I can’t blame you. It isn’t any fun to be caught in a trap. I wouldn’t
like it myself, and I’ll take you out if you don’t bite me.” For Larry
knew that woodchucks can bite very severely when they are caught and
when they fear they are in danger.
“I’ll go and get a bag to carry you in,” said Larry, still speaking
aloud, as though Winkie could understand him. “I’ll get a bag, and then
take you home. My sister Alice will like you. We’ll teach you tricks
after we tame you. Wait here while I go for a bag!”
There really wasn’t any need of telling Winkie to “wait there.” She
couldn’t get loose. And of course she remained until Larry came back.
He had gone to his father’s barn and gotten a strong bag in which feed
came for the horses.
Dropping this bag over Winkie, who was now more frightened than ever,
Larry reached in from the outside, the strong bag keeping Winkie from
biting, though she tried to do this, and soon the boy had loosened the
spring and taken the trap off the woodchuck’s leg.
“Oh, how good it feels not to be pinched any more!” thought Winkie.
“Oh, how good it feels!”
And she curled up in the bottom of the bag, as Larry slung it over his
shoulder, and closed her eyes, for she felt so much better than she
had in the trap.
“I wonder what is going to happen to me?” thought Winkie.
She was going to have more adventures, though she did not know it just
then.
Across the fields went Larry, carrying the wily woodchuck in the bag
over his shoulder. Winkie did not mind the bouncing, for the pain in
her leg, where the trap had pinched her, was growing less now.
“Oh, Larry, what have you got?” cried his sister Alice, as he reached
the house.
“A woodchuck,” the boy answered. “She was in my skunk trap.”
“Is she dead?” asked Alice.
“No, she’s very much alive,” replied Larry. “Don’t go near the bag or
she may bite you. We’ll tame her, and she’ll do tricks for us. Get me
a piece of cord, Alice, and I’ll tie this bag up. Then the woodchuck
can’t get out until I build a pen for her.”
“Oh, are you going to do that?” asked Alice.
“Yes, I’ll make a strong pen, so she can’t get out. You’ll help me,
won’t you? After she’s been in the pen a while, and we feed her every
day, she’ll get used to us and grow tame. Then we can teach her some
tricks.”
“Oh, that will be fun!” cried Alice.
The cord which Alice brought was tied around the neck of the bag, so
that the woodchuck could not get out, though she tried to do this as
soon as Larry set the bag down on the ground.
“Oh, we have you safe!” exclaimed the boy, as he saw the form of the
ground-hog scurrying about inside the bag. “But we’ll soon give you
a better place than that to live in. Come on, Alice, we’ll make a
woodchuck pen!”
The brother and sister hammered away, nailing boards together, and
soon the pen was finished. Larry took the bag, loosed the string, and
held the open end of the bag over the pen. Out toppled Winkie, her
eyes blinking on account of being so suddenly thrust into the bright
sunlight from the darkness of the bag.
The first thing Winkie did, after tumbling from the bag, was to stand
very still, crouching on the ground. Then she looked about for a way of
escape. In one corner of the pen she saw a square black hole.
“Maybe that’s a burrow door,” thought Winkie. “If I can run down that
I’ll be safe.”
She waddled over to the square black hole, and went through it. But she
only found herself inside a small box, with no way out.
“Oh, she went into her bedroom!” laughed Alice, clapping her hands. “I
guess she’s sleepy!”
“I guess she thought she could get out that way,” said Larry. “But she
can’t. That inside box is for her to sleep in, but she can’t get out
that way.”
And, to Winkie’s sorrow, she could not. She was fast in a pen which was
to be her new home. The woodchuck remained inside the inner box for a
little while, seeking some hole through which she might crawl. But when
she saw none she came out into the open pen again.
The pen Larry and Alice had made, which was to be Winkie’s new home,
was really a large box set on the ground. It had a bottom to it, and
four sides, but no top. In place of the box cover Larry had put on
some strong chicken wire. Winkie could not push her way up through
this wire, nor could she bite it, though she had very strong teeth for
gnawing bark and nipping clover.
In one corner of the larger box Larry and Alice had set a smaller box,
with wooden sides and a wooden top. There was a square hole for a door
in this smaller box, and this was Winkie’s bedroom.
[Illustration: Out toppled Winkie.]
“You’re safe here now, little woodchuck!” said Larry. “I’m going to
feed you and then teach you tricks when you get tame.”
“Maybe she wants a drink of water,” suggested Alice.
“Yes, I guess she does,” said Larry. “I’ll get some for her.”
When a basin of water was set down inside the pen the woodchuck was so
thirsty that she began to drink at once. The boy and girl laughed to
see her drink.
“She’s getting tame already,” said Alice.
“Well, sort of beginning,” agreed Larry. “Now I’ll get her something
to eat. But I guess I’d better bait that trap with something besides
carrot if I want to catch a skunk. I guess skunks don’t like carrots,
for none has come near the trap since I set it.”
Larry was right. Skunks are not carrot-eating animals, though they may
take a nibble now and then if they are very hungry.
The children had started to get something for Winkie to eat when,
all at once, there came a noise which was a dreadful sound to the
ground-hog.
It was the barking of a dog!