Mr. Crow laughed. He said nothing more. But as Billy hurried away he could hear the young hedgehog calling:
“Ground hog! Marmot! Ground hog! Marmot!” over and over again.
Billy Woodchuck was surprised to see how calm his mother was when he told her those horrid names. He had rather expected that she would hurry over to the woods and say a few things to that young hedgehog, and to old Mr. Crow as well. But she only said:
“Don’t be silly! Of course you’re a ground hog. You’re an American marmot, too. Though our family has been known in this neighborhood for many years as the Woodchuck family, you needn’t be ashamed of either of those other names. Isn’t ‘ground hog’ every bit as good a name as ‘hedgehog?’”
Billy Woodchuck began to think it was. And as for “marmot”—that began to have quite a fine sound in his ears.
“Why can’t we change our name to that?” he asked his mother.
But Mrs. Woodchuck shook her head.
“We are plain country people,” she said. “Woodchuck is the best name for us.”
