“Oh—holy, holy.
Oh—spheral, spheral.
Oh—clear up, clear up.”
And each time the thrush sang his “Oh” he would sing it a bit higher, beginning first upon a low note. Then far off, hidden in the dark bushes upon the nest, the mother thrush would send back a long, deep “O-h.”
This little song of praise which the thrush sang every night meant a great deal to Dame Woodchuck, for she knew when the thrush came to the edge of the clearing and sang, then there could be no dangers lurking about, because the Hermit Thrush is so shy he would never sing his lullaby so near the pasture when there chanced to be a spy at hand. So you see what a safe spot the Dame had selected, and also many others, who lived in the edge of the woods close by, the gray rabbit, and the chipmunks.
Now far across the clover field in the distance might be seen a long, dusty highway, which ran up over the hill, and from the top of the rock the Dame and Twins used to watch the farmer’s teams as they crept slowly over the hill. They were curious about them, but then they never left the road, so of course there could be nothing to fear from them.
But one day instead of the slow-going farmer’s wagon, quite a different looking thing came tearing madly over the long road. The Dame and the Twins were almost paralyzed with fear when they saw it, and sat up straight and watched it with bulging eyes and chattering teeth. It had great yellow eyes, which blazed in the sun; its body was bright red, and when it came just opposite the clover field it gave a loud “honk, honk,” and then the woodchuck family waited to see no more, but bolted straight for their door and inside, as quickly as possible, so that actually the Dame, in her mad haste, managed to scrape off quite a patch of deep brown fur from her back.
Very shortly after this, when the woodchuck family were taking a moonlight stroll to the bean field, the same monster came rushing madly over the road with its yellow eyes agleam, almost the size of the moon. At which awful sight the Dame and the Twins gave up their bean feast and tore home as fast as they could, going in by the back door.
In time, all the little wild dwellers of the forest near by came to know about the great red monster with its yellow eyes, its awful screech, and the odor of its fetid breath, which poisoned all the balsam, woodsy scents of the forest, and made them cough. What awful thing had come into their forest home and disturbed their quiet, peaceful homes? Even the Hermit Thrush no longer dared come to the edge of the clearing to sing her lullaby at twilight.
One morning, before the woodchuck family were astir, they heard a great commotion over their heads.
“Click, click, click, rattle, rattle,” it sounded. And the Dame poked her nose out of the hole cautiously, and looked and stared in dismay at the sight before her scared eyes. A great red monster was being dragged over the clover field by the farmer’s horses; the creature had sharp, cruel teeth, a long, shining row of them, and they bit and bit through the tall clover, so that it fell all over the field and lay flat. In a panic the Dame rushed to tell the Twins, and there they all stayed, deep down inside the burrow all day long, while the red monster rattled and bit its way through the clover over their heads. At night all was still, and the woodchucks, gaining courage, crawled forth into the field because they were very hungry. But what a sight met their gaze! The monster was no longer there, and the clover was no longer there; the field was quite bare.
So the Dame and the Twins held counsel that night, and stealing forth, they left their old home, and traveled far beneath the moon. Over swamps, and through unknown forests they went, until they finally reached a wild, lonely place beneath a mountain. Then they all set to work with a will and dug out a new burrow for themselves. To their joy they discovered that many of their neighbors had followed them, the gray rabbit, and the chipmunk family. And the very next evening as Dame Woodchuck came out to seek her supper, right overhead in a thick pine came the Hermit Thrush.