“He made us do it,” they chattered.
“It was only a few minutes,” one of them apologized.
“You needed a little rest,” another remarked.
Ready did feel a little put out by the delay, but he remembered that after all they had offered to be his escorts and had only lost their heads for a few minutes. Had not he too once lost his head?
So he only wagged politely when he might have said, “If it were not for my barking, you would still be eating that peanut butter.”
Then they all started on again. To tell the truth, the Chipmunks really felt ashamed of themselves and thought that Ready was behaving splendidly. You would know this by the little things they tried to do for him.
“He made us do it,” they chattered
Chippy, the oldest, actually kept waiting for him and once admired the spots on his coat. Snippy, the youngest, offered to show him a place where they all had some nuts stored for winter. Of course that was a foolish offer to make to a dog, but Ready knew it was meant to be a great attention, so he said at once, “I thank you very much, but think I will not stop [to-night], as it is growing quite late.”
They were getting near the end of the woods now and all was going beautifully when a sudden flash of lightning was followed quickly by a clap of thunder. Then came a downpour of rain, drenching everybody in about two seconds.