Buddy Jim

by Elizabeth Gordon

So Buddy started filling his sack with the crisp green and brown clusters of nuts, thinking what a treat they would be for the boys in the city, winter evenings after school. The sack was soon filled, there were so many nuts, and then Buddy sat down to eat his sandwiches and listen to the sounds around him. There was Old Jim Crow's "Ha, Ha," as he flew away from the corn field, and the clear whistle of the Bob Whites as they went back to the hawthorn to finish their lunch, and the "Quick, quick," of Mr. Blue Jay, who is always in a hurry over nothing at all, when suddenly Old Dog Sandy began to bark. Mixed with his barking and growling was a scolding, chattering voice that Buddy had never heard before.

"I wonder," said he to himself, running toward the noises, "what that meddlesome old dog is up to now?"

Old Dog Sandy was dancing about as nimbly as a puppy, in front of a tunnel in the side of a little hillock, barking at a funny little fat figure, which was sitting straight up, with its fore paws hanging down in front of itself.

Old Dog Sandy saw his little master coming, and stopped his barking, for he remembered just too late that he was to be sent home. Just then the little fellow in the tunnel door saw Buddy. "I say," he called, "call off your dog. He makes me nervous; if he comes any nearer I shall bite him. And I can't go indoors until my mate comes back. How do I know he would not kill her, he's so savage? And she's so fat she can't run."

"Go on home, Sandy," said Buddy. "I told you, you know." "Oh don't send him off alone," said the small person, "I don't know which way my mate is coming back; dogs can't be trusted. He might meet her and tear her all to pieces. They always kill all wild creatures," he said. "That's part of their game; just their nature; they can't help it; we have to look out for them, that's all. But I do not want my mate killed, so will you please take him with you when you go?"

"Are you in a hurry for me to go?" asked Buddy, laughing. "Well," said the small person, trying politely not to yawn, "I really am a little sleepy, you know. My mate said she just had to have one more dinner before we go to sleep, so she went over to the turnip field to get it, and I wasn't hungry so I promised to wind the alarm clock. I had just come out to get the correct time from Mr. Sun, when your old dog came along."

"Do you really mean that you have a clock to get up by?" asked Buddy. "Why not? Don't you?" asked the small person. "Though our clock is not like yours; ours is a sort of calendar clock. We must wake up on Candlemas day, you know, else nobody would know what the weather was going to be for the balance of the winter."

"Oh, now I know who you are," said Buddy. "You're Mr. Ground-Hog. Bob the gardener told me about you."

"Some folks call me that, and some folks call me Wood-Chuck," said the small person. "I don't care either way, so long as they do not call me before February the second. But my mate is coming back, so if you will take your dog away so that she can come in, I'll be much obliged to you."

So Buddy and Old Dog Sandy stepped behind a big rock. Buddy peeped out and saw fat little Mrs. Wood-Chuck waddling along, blinking sleepily in the sun. As she joined her mate, in the door of their house, Mr. Wood-Chuck turned and waved a friendly goodbye to Buddy, who slung his sack of nuts over his shoulder and started home.