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Tale of Billy Woodchuck

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<h2>IX</h2> <h2>AT AUNT POLLY’S</h2> After Jimmy Rabbit and Billy Woodchuck had eaten the very last goody in old Aunt Polly Woodchuck’s basket, Jimmy said that he must hurry away at once. “Don’t you want to go with me while I take her basket home?” Billy asked him. “I’d like to; but I can’t,” said Jimmy. “The basket’s light, anyway. You won’t have any trouble carrying it.” And that was the truth. “If you want to play beggar again to-morrow, perhaps I can meet you here once more,” Jimmy added. “I’m always glad to help a friend, you know.” And then he hopped away. Billy Woodchuck trotted over to Aunt[50] Polly’s house under the hill. He hoped the old lady hadn’t reached home yet, for he was afraid she might know who he was the next time she saw him. Luckily she had not returned. And Billy left the basket just outside the door of her sitting-room and was hurrying back through her neat tunnel, when he heard voices. And sure enough, as he crawled out of Aunt Polly’s front door, there sat the old lady herself. And with her was Billy’s own mother, who had come over to pay a call upon Aunt Polly and ask after her rheumatism. “Well, if here isn’t that poor little lad right now!” Aunt Polly exclaimed, the minute she saw Billy Woodchuck. “He’s just after bringing home my basket, I know.” She had been telling Billy’s mother about the starving youngster she[51] had found. “So this is the young beggar, is it?” Mrs. Woodchuck said. “I must say he looks very fat for a person who has had nothing to eat for a week.” Aunt Polly felt of Billy’s pudgy sides. “Dearie me! He doesn’t seem thin, exactly,” she agreed. “But you must remember he has just had one good meal.” “No doubt!” said Mrs. Woodchuck. “And it’s the fourth, at least, that he’s had to-day.” “You don’t say so! You know him, then?” asked Aunt Polly. “I’m ashamed to say I do,” Mrs. Woodchuck answered. “I never thought I should be the mother of a beggar. But I see that I am. It can’t be helped this time. But I know how to keep it from happening again.” She took hold of Billy’s ear. “Come home with me, young man,” she[52] said. Billy Woodchuck began to whimper. “It was just a game!” he cried. “We were only playing. We were having fun.” “We? How many were there of you?” his mother asked. “Two of us—me and Jimmy Rabbit!” Mrs. Woodchuck was too upset to notice that Billy said me when he ought to have said I. “I’d like to have Jimmy Rabbit’s ear in my other hand,” she told Aunt Polly. <hr /> [53] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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