If she had been a real little girl, instead of an animal one, Winkie might have cried, for she was lost for the first time in her life, and away from father, mother, brother and sister. I believe almost any of you little girls, and probably a good many of the boys, would have cried.
But Winkie was a brave little woodchuck girl, and she was also wily, which, as I have told you, means smart and cunning.
“No, I’m not going to cry!” said Winkie to herself. “If I cry, and make a blubbery noise, some of the farmer’s dogs may hear me and chase me. Or maybe a fox will hear me. I’m going to keep still and see if I can’t find Blinkie and the others.”
So saying, Winkie came to a stop in the midst of her mad, frightened rush amid the dried leaves. She became very quiet, listened and looked about her. At first she could hear nothing but the beating of her own little, frightened heart and the whispering of the wind among the trees. This last sound came to Winkie’s ears as rather friendly. She was beginning to like it in the big woods.
“Perhaps nothing will harm me here,” she said to herself. “And I may have adventures, such as my father and mother have told me about having had when they were younger.”
Thinking thus made Winkie feel better. She was not so frightened. Though she no longer ran on as fast as when she had heard the distant blast set off by Farmer Tottle, she still kept running.
“For,” she said to herself, “I want to find my father and mother if I can.”
So Winkie’s wanderings were all done toward the end of finding her family again, and the adventures came in between, so to speak.