The brother and sister hammered away, nailing boards together, and soon the pen was finished. Larry took the bag, loosed the string, and held the open end of the bag over the pen. [Out toppled Winkie], her eyes blinking on account of being so suddenly thrust into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the bag.
The first thing Winkie did, after tumbling from the bag, was to stand very still, crouching on the ground. Then she looked about for a way of escape. In one corner of the pen she saw a square black hole.
“Maybe that’s a burrow door,” thought Winkie. “If I can run down that I’ll be safe.”
She waddled over to the square black hole, and went through it. But she only found herself inside a small box, with no way out.
“Oh, she went into her bedroom!” laughed Alice, clapping her hands. “I guess she’s sleepy!”
“I guess she thought she could get out that way,” said Larry. “But she can’t. That inside box is for her to sleep in, but she can’t get out that way.”
And, to Winkie’s sorrow, she could not. She was fast in a pen which was to be her new home. The woodchuck remained inside the inner box for a little while, seeking some hole through which she might crawl. But when she saw none she came out into the open pen again.
The pen Larry and Alice had made, which was to be Winkie’s new home, was really a large box set on the ground. It had a bottom to it, and four sides, but no top. In place of the box cover Larry had put on some strong chicken wire. Winkie could not push her way up through this wire, nor could she bite it, though she had very strong teeth for gnawing bark and nipping clover.
In one corner of the larger box Larry and Alice had set a smaller box, with wooden sides and a wooden top. There was a square hole for a door in this smaller box, and this was Winkie’s bedroom.