WINKIE, THE WILY
WOODCHUCK
CHAPTER I
WINKIE PLAYS TAG
“What shall we do next?” asked Winkie, the wily woodchuck.
“Isn’t it too hot to do anything?” was what Blinkie, her sister, wanted to know. “Let’s just sit here by the front door, where we can easily pop down into our underground house if anything happens.”
“Do you think anything is going to happen?” asked Winkie, who was called wily because she was so smart and careful, always on the lookout for traps and danger. “If you think anything is going to happen,” went on Winkie, speaking to her sister, “I’m going in now and tell mother. I’d tell pa, only he isn’t home yet from the woods, where he went to get something special to eat.”
“Oh, I don’t know that there is any special danger,” said Blinkie, as she pawed out a bit of thistle that had become stuck to her fur. “But it’s too hot to do anything, Winkie.”
“Except to eat clover,” half grunted Blunk, who was the woodchuck brother of Winkie and Blinkie. “Let’s go over in the farmer’s big field and eat a lot more clover,” suggested Blunk. You know clover is what woodchucks like best of all.
“Clover!” laughed Winkie, tapping her brother playfully on his black nose. “If you eat any more clover, Blunk, it will run out of your ears, as grandma says.”