Of course Winkie did not understand this talk, but the woodchuck knew when any one was kind to her, and Alice was certainly kind. Alice gave Winkie a final pat, stroked her fur, and then, leaving the door open, Alice ran back into the house, softly pattering in her bare feet over the grass and boards.
“Good-bye, Winkie, good-bye!” whispered the little girl, as she closed the back door, went upstairs, and jumped into bed, nobody having heard her.
Then, almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, Alice fell asleep. Her mind was now at rest about Winkie.
But now let us see what happened to the wily woodchuck. It did not take Winkie long to notice the open door. She knew in what part of her pen it was, for she often went in and out when doing her tricks. And now, in the moonlight, the open door plainly showed.
“I guess they want me to go out,” thought Winkie. “Some more of that funny business, I suppose, rolling over and sitting up. Well, I don’t mind, for they give me good things to eat.”
But when Winkie reached the outside of her pen neither Larry nor Alice was in sight, for Alice had gone back to bed and Larry had not gotten up.
“Why—why, it looks as if I could run away!” was the sudden thought that came into the woodchuck’s mind. “Yes, I can run away. I can go back to the woods and maybe find my family! Oh, how lovely that will be!”
So away ran Winkie in the moonlight. She was only partly tame, and even animals that have been in captivity a long time, and have come to love their masters very much, will run away and turn wild again if they get the chance.
Winkie’s chance had come.