And Tavia, who was just crazy to run wild in the woods and fields again, as she herself said, was over-ruled and went with the boys.
They went up into the fields near the Rouse farm. Had they gone by the way of the railroad crossing they might have passed “the Dump,” as the open lot was called, just about the time Dorothy was talking with Jane Daggett and her hopeful son.
But Tavia and the boys—all Dorothy’s friends, in fact—were quite unaware of the trouble into which Dorothy’s impetuosity had gotten her.
The old pasture in which the boys had discovered the woodchuck burrows was full of sheltering clumps of dwarfed trees, and piles of stone. A woodchuck always has two openings to his home, and unless a watch is set at both holes no amount of smoking out will enable the hunter to grab Mr. Woodchuck.
“But we got it cinched!” declared Joe Dale, with excitement. “See this old mud turtle?”
The turtle produced was as large as the bottom of a two-quart pail. Tavia, who knew lots about snaring and trapping small game, was frankly puzzled over the use to which the turtle was to be put.
“Now you’ll see,” giggled her brother. “And we ain’t goin’ to hurt the turtle a mite. Pull out his tail, Joe.”
“Yes, pull out his tail, brother,” urged Roger, dancing around the group that hovered about one of the doors to Mr. Woodchuck’s den.
“Isn’t a turtle funny?” laughed Tavia. “He sits down, swallows his head, and puts both his hands and feet in his pockets.”
“Now the string,” said Joe, seriously. He tied a piece of stout cord to the creature’s tail.