It was not the noise that he minded, for he had often heard thunder when rain storms made the ground wet. Though now there was not a cloud in the sky, which was bright blue, and the sun was gaily shining. So it could not have been thunder.
“There!” cried the man. “I guess I shot one of them pesky woodchucks that time! I’ll teach ’em to take my clover!”
There was a queer smell in the air—a powder smell, though Blunk did not know what it was then. And there was a little cloud of blue smoke near Farmer Tottle, for it was he who had fired the gun at Blunk and Winkie.
“Yes, sir!” went on the farmer, lowering his gun, from the end of which more blue smoke floated. “I got one of the woodchucks!”
“Ha!” suddenly cried Winkie, jumping up from the grass and clover where she was hidden near Blunk. “He didn’t get me!”
“Oh!” cried Blunk, who was less quick-witted than his wily sister and who was very much surprised when Winkie leaped up so suddenly. “Oh, I’m so glad! I thought something had happened to you, Winkie!”
“Something really did happen,” said the girl woodchuck. “Keep still, Blunk! Don’t move! Don’t look up!”
“Why not?”
“Because that man might shoot you! He’s got a gun! I saw him pointing it, and, just in time, I stumbled and fell.”