WINKIE FINDS HER FOLKS
Out of the yard, over the brook, and across the meadow hurried Winkie,
as fast as her fat little body could waddle. Woodchucks, especially
when they are fat from much eating, are not very fast travelers, and
Winkie could not go very rapidly. Besides, she was in no great hurry.
She did not think any danger would come to her in this beautiful,
moonlight night.
But danger was near!
As Winkie waddled along she suddenly heard a tramping noise. It was
the noise of heavy boots on the ground. Winkie knew footsteps when she
heard them, for she had listened to those of Larry and Alice running
home from school every day to feed her. But these footfalls were big
and heavy.
“Maybe this is a farmer coming with a dog!” thought Winkie. “I guess
I’d better hide!”
And hide she did, under a bush. It was well she did so, for, a little
later, along came Uncle Elias with a big club in his hand. Uncle Elias
walked as softly as he could as he neared the house of his sister, in
the yard of which he knew was Winkie’s pen.
“I’ll fix that woodchuck!” muttered the man. “It’s all right for
children to have pets, but let ’em get a dog or a cat that doesn’t eat
clover and gnaw vegetables. Woodchucks are pesky creatures! I’ll soon
put an end to this one.”
Mr. Tottle came to the fence, paused to look up at the house, and,
seeing it was all in darkness, he climbed over and walked softly toward
Winkie’s pen. It was a good thing Alice had been down and gone back
again, or she might have been frightened by the big figure of a man
stalking through the moonlight, with a club in his hand.
And perhaps if Uncle Elias had seen the white-robed figure floating
over the grass in the moonlight he might have thought it was a fairy.
But then, he didn’t believe in fairies.
“Now you pesky woodchuck, this is the end of you!” fiercely exclaimed
Uncle Elias, as he reached the pen and raised his club.
But what a surprise for him! The door of the pen was open and there was
no woodchuck to be seen!
“Gone!” gasped Mr. Tottle. “That pesky creature’s gone! I guess she
broke out and has gone over to my clover field. I’ll fix her!”
Away he strode, muttering to himself. Back over the fence he climbed,
and, had he but known it, he passed close to Winkie’s hiding place. But
the wily woodchuck crouched down in the grass and neither moved nor
made a sound.
Uncle Elias tramped on his way, muttering about “pesky creatures” over
to his own clover patch. He thought he might find Winkie, or some other
woodchucks, eating his crops. But he saw none, and that seemed to make
him more angry, for he had tramped around in the night for nothing.
“But I’ll get that ground-hog when she comes back to her cage,” he
muttered. “I will, or I’ll sic Buster on her!”
Uncle Elias angrily tossed his club on the wood pile and went to bed.
Meanwhile Winkie, waiting until his tramping feet had gone away, came
out of her hiding place.
“Now for something good to eat!” thought the little woodchuck.
She was always ready to eat, and, somehow or other, the grass she now
nibbled tasted sweeter than any she had ever chewed in her pen. It was
almost as good as carrots. Perhaps it was because Winkie was free.
On through the night wandered the little ground-hog girl. She did not
know which way she was going――she did not care as long as no dogs,
wolves or foxes chased her. She ate some more, and then, finding a
hollow log, she curled up in it and went to sleep.
Winkie awakened before daylight, and crawled out. She felt that she
must be on her way again.
“I want to find my folks,” she said wistfully. She was getting tired of
going about by herself, and even when she had been with Larry and Alice
she had longed for a game of tag with Blinkie and Blunk.
Wandering on, Winkie came to a farmhouse. Though she did not know it,
this was the place where Uncle Elias lived. But the cross man was
asleep now, and so was Buster, curled up in the straw of his kennel.
“I smell something very good!” suddenly whispered Winkie to herself.
“It smells like carrots and turnips and other good things!”
She sat up on her haunches, as Larry had taught her to do, a trick she
would have learned by herself, anyhow, and again she sniffed. The good
smell came from a side porch of the farmhouse, and, going softly up the
steps, Winkie saw and smelled some baskets of vegetables.
“Oh!” thought the little woodchuck. “Some one must have known I was
coming and they left these here for me! Oh, how good they are!”
She stood up and gnawed the potatoes, cabbages, turnips and carrots in
the basket, eating her fill. And even a small woodchuck has a large
appetite. Winkie ate so much she could hardly waddle, and then she went
off into the wood a little distance, lay down in another hollow log,
and went to sleep.
Daylight came. Uncle Elias came downstairs early, for he was going to
take a load of vegetables to the city. He had packed them in baskets
the night before and set them on the side porch. As he went to load
them into his wagon he gave an angry cry.
“Look here! Look here!” he shouted. “Some pesky woodchuck has been here
and sampled all my vegetables! Look here!”
“Oh, a woodchuck would hardly come right up to the house,” said his
wife.
“But this one did!” cried Mr. Tottle. “I know the mark of a ground-hog’s
teeth. And look, here are paw marks in the dirt! Yes, a woodchuck has
been here. And I know which one it was!”
“Which one?” asked Mrs. Tottle.
“The pesky creature Larry and Alice keep for a pet! I was over last
night――I mean I’m going over now,” and Uncle Elias corrected himself
quickly. “I’m going over now and make ’em get rid of it!”
[Illustration: Winkie ate so much she could hardly waddle.]
Over to his sister’s house he hurried.
“Look here!” he stormed. “You’ve got to get rid of your woodchuck! She
chewed up a lot of my best vegetables. Where is she? I’m going to get
rid of her!”
He went out to the pen, followed by Alice and Larry. Alice said
nothing, but Larry was crying and saying that if Uncle Elias did
anything to Winkie, Larry would tell his father.
But Winkie was not in her pen! The door was open as Alice had left it.
“She――she’s gone!” gasped Larry. “Our Winkie is gone!”
“I knew she got out, because she was over at my place!” said Uncle
Elias. “I was here――I mean I’m here now to see that she doesn’t get out
again. She came over in the night and ate my best vegetables. I thought
she’d be back here by now.”
“No, Winkie isn’t here,” said Alice. “And I――I’m glad of it, Uncle
Elias!” she said bravely.
“Oh, you are, are you!” snorted the unkind man. “Well, when she comes
back I’ll fix her.”
“Maybe she’ll never come back,” said Larry sadly. “I wonder how she got
out? I fastened the door last night.”
Alice knew, and later on she told Larry. She didn’t want Buster or
Uncle Elias to catch the woodchuck. And the angry farmer or the big dog
never did.
After her fine feast of the vegetables belonging to Uncle Elias,
Winkie slept until nearly noon. Then she awakened in the hollow tree,
stretched herself and walked out.
There were woods not far away, and Winkie, feeling thirsty, thought she
might find a brook there.
“But I must be careful to keep out of traps,” she thought to herself.
“The next one I get caught in may not be as easy on me as the one Larry
set.”
Carefully Winkie made her way through the woods. As she was drinking
she heard a noise on the other side of the brook. Looking up she saw
Toto, the beaver.
“Hello, Winkie!” called the bustling chap, who was floating a little
log of wood into a canal he had dug. “Say, where have you been,
Winkie?” Toto asked.
“Oh, lots of places,” answered the woodchuck. “The last place I was in
was a pen, but a little girl let me out. Why do you ask?”
“Because some new woodchucks, who have just come to these woods to live,
have been asking for you.”
“Asking for me?” cried Winkie.
“Yes, there was a girl woodchuck named Blinkie and――――”
“That’s my sister!” cried Winkie.
“And a boy woodchuck named Blunk!”
“He’s my brother!” cried Winkie. “Oh, where are they? And are my father
and mother with Blinkie and Blunk?”
“Well, there are four woodchucks living not far from our beaver dam,”
said Toto. “They just moved there last week. They said they had been
driven out of their burrow by a big noise, and then, when they were
all walking along together to find a new home, they heard another big
noise, and they separated. The four of them came together some time
later, but the fifth one was lost.”
“I am that fifth one!” cried Winkie.
“I’m beginning to think so!” chuckled Toto. “Come, and I’ll take you to
the other woodchucks!”
He led the way. Winkie saw a big pile of grass, sticks, stones, and mud
across a pond of water. This was the beaver dam. A little distance off
was a smaller pile of dirt near a hole in the side of a hill.
“That’s where the new woodchuck family lives,” said Toto, pointing with
his flat tail.
Winkie hurried over. She saw a woodchuck come to the edge of the burrow
and look out.
“Oh, Blinkie! Here I am!” shouted Winkie. “Don’t you know me? I’ve come
back. Here I am!”
The woodchuck at the edge of the burrow gave a whistle and a chatter.
Three other ground-hogs came rushing out.
“Winkie! It’s my Winkie!” cried Mrs. Woodchuck.
“Oh, Mother!” sobbed Winkie. “How glad I am to be home again! Oh, such
adventures as I’ve had! But now I’m home!”
Winkie had found her folks again! And she lived happily with them
until, as a grown-up woodchuck, she went away to make her own home in
her own burrow.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
――Printer’s, punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently
corrected.
――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
End of Project Gutenberg's Winkie, the Wily Woodchuck, by Richard Barnum