“That’s so!” exclaimed her father. “This is no time for sitting down and biting one’s paws. We must look for a way out! Come, Blunk, you and I will try the back-door again. And, Mother, you take Winkie and Blinkie and try the front-door. Maybe there is a little hole which we can dig larger, and so get out through it. Look sharp!”
This was better than sitting still sighing; at least so Winkie felt. But while her mother and sister went to the front-door hole, and her father and brother to the back door, the wily little woodchuck nosed off by herself. She remembered that once, when she was playing hide-and-seek with Blunk and Blinkie she had hidden herself in a side passage of the burrow. The passage was larger and longer than she had at first thought, and she had made up her mind, after the game, to see where it went. But, somehow or other, she had never done this.
“But I’m going into that hole now and see if it leads anywhere,” thought Winkie. “Maybe it’s a tunnel that will let us out.”
Winkie could see quite well in the dark. She soon found her old hiding-place, and, going to the far end, where she had never before been, she looked upward. To her delight she saw a little bit of daylight gleaming. Scrambling her way forward, Winkie began to dig. She had soon made a larger hole. She put her nose close to this, and could smell fresh air.
Much excited, Winkie climbed down and ran to the middle of the burrow, just as her father and Blunk came from the back door.
“There is no way out there,” said Mr. Woodchuck sadly.
“Nor at the front!” added Mrs. Woodchuck, coming back with Blinkie. “But where have you been, Winkie?”
“I think I have found a way out!” cried the wily woodchuck. “Yes, I am sure I have. Come! I’ll show you!”