“Maybe,” agreed her mother. “I hope neither of them finds his way down here!”
But the farmer was not talking to his dog. One doesn’t say “whoa!” to dogs, one says it to horses. And that is to whom the farmer called the word which means stop.
“Whoa there now!” cried Farmer Tottle again. “Stand still, can’t you? Want to drag this plow over all them rocks? I’ve got to blast ’em out. That’s what I’ve got to do. These rocks and stumps are in the way, and I’m going to get some powder and blow ’em to bits. What with big stones on my farm, and the pesky woodchucks eating the clover, I won’t have enough left to buy me a new shirt at the end of the year. Stand still, can’t you? Not that I blame you much for not wanting to plow in this field of rocks,” he went on. “Guess I’ll go and get some powder and blow ’em up now. I’ll finish plowing to-morrow.”
It was this noise of the plow rasping and cutting its way through the earth over their heads, and the heavy thud of the hoofs of the horses, that Winkie and the other woodchucks had heard down in their burrow.
There was silence while Farmer Tottle was thinking of the best way to blast the rocks from his field, not far from the clover patch where Blunk and Winkie had played tag that day. Then, having made up his mind what he would do, Mr. Tottle turned his team around and drove them back to the barn.
“The noise isn’t so loud now,” whispered Winkie, after a bit.
“No. Maybe nothing is going to happen after all,” said Blinkie.
But the danger was over only for a little while. The noise stopped as Farmer Tottle drove away, and, for a time, the ground-hogs thought everything was going to be all right. Ground-hog is another name for the woodchuck.
“I guess I can go out now,” said Mr. Woodchuck, when an hour or more had passed and there were no more thumping sounds and no further cries of “Whoa!”