“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” he went on. “We’ll be ready to run away at the slightest sign of danger. If that farmer comes to our front door we’ll run out the back door; and if he comes to the back door we’ll skip out the front, and all will be well.”
“It sounds all right,” said Mother Woodchuck. “I only hope it happens that way.”
But it did not. Things in the woodchuck world, just as in your world and mine, very often do not turn out the way they are expected to. For several days, however, after the game of tag and the shooting of the gun, nothing happened in the woodchuck home. For a time Winkie, Blinkie, and Blunk hardly poked their noses outside the back or front door. But as the days passed and no farmer with his gun and dog came, the children became bolder.
They played tag and other games and ate the clover and the other good things their father and mother brought home. Then, one morning, just as Mr. Woodchuck was starting out to go to a distant field, and when the children were about to go out and play, Winkie held up her paw and said:
“Listen! I hear a noise!”
CHAPTER III
WINKIE FINDS A WAY OUT
Just as soon as Winkie told the other woodchucks to be quiet and listen, they all remained as still as though frozen in their places. Not one made a move. This is what wild animals always do when they hear or see anything strange. They stay quiet for just a moment or two before making up their minds what is best to do to save themselves from danger. And that danger was at hand Winkie, the wily woodchuck, felt sure.
As I have told you, she was the smartest of all the woodchuck children, and that is why her mother nicknamed her “Wily,” which means smart and cunning.