“Nonsense!” she said. “Of course, we must have a back door. But we must dig it from the inside up, and not from the outside down.”
And she explained that when you build a door by digging down into the ground, there’s always a heap of dirt about it, which anybody can see. But when you are out of sight in your tunnel you can dig right up to the top of the ground and make a small, round door, beneath a hummock of grass, or a stone, or a stump. People must have very sharp eyes to see a back door that’s made in that way, for the dirt all falls inside your house.
With all the help she had, Mrs. Woodchuck’s new house was soon finished. But it was done none too soon. She had hardly carried in clean grass for the beds, when her children began to feel very sleepy. At least, all of them except Billy. He was just as wide awake as his mother.
Even after his brothers and sisters had been tucked up for their winter’s nap he was as spry as anything. And he told his mother that he was not going to spend the winter sleeping.
“Jimmy Rabbit says that it’s great fun to play in the snow,” he said.
Mrs. Woodchuck couldn’t help smiling; for at that very moment Billy was yawning as wide a yawn as you ever saw on a young chuck’s face. Though he didn’t know it, he was already growing drowsy. And his mother knew very well that no matter how much he wanted to stay awake, in a short time he would be sound asleep.
Though Jimmy Rabbit came to Billy’s house the very next day and called and called to him, he never came out at all.