But just at present all there seemed for the little girl woodchuck to do was to slide down the back-door hole of her underground home. And this she did until she was tired.
She would gather her paws under her, sit down on the smooth shale-rocks at the top of the hole, give herself a little push, and down she would go, landing in the big underground earth-room, where all the woodchucks of this one family lived.
“My goodness, Winkie! what are you doing?” cried her mother, who was having a nap all by herself.
“Just sliding down the hole,” answered Winkie. “Blinkie and Blunk won’t play with me, so I have to slide all alone.”
Mrs. Woodchuck did not answer, for she had fallen asleep once more. But she awakened when Winkie came sliding down again, and the mother of the little animal girl said:
“I wish, Winkie, you’d go somewhere else to play. I want to sleep, and you wake me up every time you land.”
“All right, Mother, I’ll see if I can get Blunk and Blinkie to play tag,” said Winkie, for she was a good little thing.
Taking just one more slide, while her mother was still awake, Winkie crawled up the back-door hole again, and went softly to Blinkie’s side. Blinkie was still slumbering.
“Tag! You’re it!” suddenly cried Winkie in her sister’s ear.