CHAPTER IV
WINKIE IN THE WOODS
The family of woodchucks huddled close together in the middle of the underground house of earth in which they had lived so happily for many months. It was dark down there, but they did not mind that. It was home to them, the same as your house is home to you. And though there were no tables nor chairs, no pictures on the wall and no piano, still there were things there that the woodchucks cared for as much as you care for the things in your house.
Winkie, Blinkie, and Blunk had brought in bits of wood and stones with which they played. Their parents had carried in things to eat, and bits of these were stored in different places that Mrs. Woodchuck might call her cupboards.
But the woodchucks were to be driven from their home. In fact, they were very glad to get out, for, no matter how fine a house is, one never wants to be shut up there forever.
If some one closed all the doors and windows of your house tight, so that no air or sunshine could get in, I think you would be as glad to find a way out as Winkie was.
“Do you think you really have found a way to get out, Winkie?” asked her father anxiously.
“I’m quite sure I have,” she answered. “I found a hole, near a side burrow where I played one day. I could stick my nose out and breathe fresh air. And we can easily make the hole larger.”
All at once there was another of those loud, rumbling sounds. It shook the earth, and the woodchucks, cowering in their burrow, trembled in fear.
Bang! down came a big clod of dirt from the roof of their burrow, scattering to pieces in the middle of the floor.