He was in his place next morning, and came scrambling to the cellar doors when she opened them. But the following morning he did not answer her call, and she discovered, on going into the bin, that there was a second big heap of dirt near the first. She plugged the hole, resolving, as before, to keep his misdeeds a secret.
For six weeks this alternate digging and plugging went on. Sometimes Badgy burrowed himself out in one night, sometimes he would not succeed in reaching the top by the time the little girl called him. And since he emerged under cover of the vacant coal-shed and kitchen that were built against the house as a lean-to, his depredations were not discovered by any of the other members of the family. Once, indeed, he was nearly caught, for he came out directly in front of the kitchen door. But judicious trampling by the little girl soon reduced the soft pile of dirt he had left at the opening to hard ground again.
One day the little girl's mother found that a spool of thread dropped on the north side of the room rolled to the south side. She pointed out the phenomenon to the little girl's big brothers. They declared that the south foundation must be giving way. An investigation from the outside led them into the shed, where they found the ground perforated with countless holes. Then they went into the cellar to examine further. There the phenomenon was explained and the culprit brought to light. Badgy had undermined the house!
The little girl waited in the garden for him that night, and answered his grunt of friendly recognition by cuffing him soundly on the ear. Then, relenting, she took him in her arms and wept over him. Inside, she knew, they were plotting to kill him. They had declared that he should not live another day. And, as she sobbed, her mind was searching out a plan to save him. Where could she hide him?
She sat with him held close in her lap for a while, watching his enemies within. Then she started on a long detour, with the new haystack as her destination. He kept close to her heels, snarling wearily. A few days before she had made a cave in the stack, which stood between the barn and the chicken-house. The cave was on the side nearest the coop, and she decided to conceal him in it and fasten him there by his chain. When she had found a stake-pin and a large stone, she led him in and drove the pin its full length to make sure that he should not get away. Then she went back to the house to secure his pardon from the family council gathered about the supper table.
She found it a hard task. Her big brothers urged Badgy's total uselessness as well as his growing love to burrow, forgetting how bravely he had always stood between his mistress and any real or fancied danger. The little girl cried bitterly as she begged for his life, and vainly offered the entire contents of her tin bank, now carefully hoarded for two years, to help repair the damage he had done. She was finally put to bed in an uncontrollable fit of grief.
When she was gone, the memory of her tear-stained face melted her brothers' wrath. They even laughed heartily over Badgy's disastrous industry; and at last, relenting, they decided that he should live, provided he could be kept out of further mischief. The little girl heard the good news early in the morning and was overjoyed. She declared that Badgy should be good for the rest of his days, and she spent the afternoon fixing up the new quarters in the cave.
For the first few nights Badgy was chained in order to wean him from the old to the new home, his chain being made so short that he could not dig far into the ground under the stack. This wore upon him so that he grew cross, thinner than ever before, and generally disheveled. The little girl saw that another week of such confinement would all but kill him; while if he were shut up in the cave unchained he would undermine the stack. She feared, however, to give him his entire freedom; so she set to work to puzzle out a scheme that would solve the problem.
At last she hit upon an idea that seemed practicable. She would tie up his fore feet so that he could not dig! Then he could go unchained in the cave, with only the door of it—the top of a big dry-goods box—to restrict his movements. Aided by her mother's scissors, some twine, and a piece of grain sacking, she put the idea into instant execution.
Badgy did not like the innovation at all. He squirmed about so when the little girl was tying up his feet that she made slow progress. And when she was done, he tried vainly to pull off his new stockings with his sharp teeth, grunting his disapproval at every tug. He worked himself into a perfect fury as he bit and tore, and finally rolled clumsily to the back of the cave, where he lay growling angrily.