The Tale of Billy Woodchuck

Excerpt

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 grass.

They had been there all winter, asleep like that. And there they would stay, until spring came and the grass 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 passed 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 grass 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 passed 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 snatch a bite from a juicy plantain.

That was Billy Woodchuck—that fat, strong youngster....