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Tale of Billy Woodchuck

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<h2>XXI</h2> <h2>AT HOME IN THE WOODS</h2> Mrs. Woodchuck was not so sorry, after all, that she had to leave her home in the pasture. You see, she always moved twice a year, anyhow. Every fall she went into the woods to live; and every spring she returned to Farmer Green’s pasture. And every time that Mrs. Woodchuck moved, she made a new house for herself. To be sure, there were plenty of chucks that never went to all that trouble. They were the lazy kind. They just hunted around till they found an old, empty house and then they moved in and made themselves right at home. But that was not[105] the way of Billy Woodchuck’s mother. She wanted everything neat and clean. You remember that when Farmer Green blasted away the old stump near Mrs. Woodchuck’s bedroom he tore a hole in the very roof of the house. And Billy and his mother and his brothers and sisters went into the woods and spent the night in a house where his great grandmother had once lived. Mrs. Woodchuck said it would do, until she could dig a new one. The very next morning she started to work. And all her children helped her. Billy told his mother that they ought to build the back door first of all. You see he remembered what his mother had taught him, early in the summer, when he made his play-houses. “Nonsense!” she said. “Of course, we must have a back door. But we must dig[106] it from the inside up, and not from the outside down.” And she explained that when you build a door by digging down into the ground, there’s always a heap of dirt about it, which anybody can see. But when you are out of sight in your tunnel you can dig right up to the top of the ground and make a small, round door, beneath a hummock of grass, or a stone, or a stump. People must have very sharp eyes to see a back door that’s made in that way, for the dirt all falls inside your house. With all the help she had, Mrs. Woodchuck’s new house was soon finished. But it was done none too soon. She had hardly carried in clean grass for the beds, when her children began to feel very sleepy. At least, all of them except Billy. He was just as wide awake as his mother. Even after his brothers and sisters had[107] been tucked up for their winter’s nap he was as spry as anything. And he told his mother that he was not going to spend the winter sleeping. “Jimmy Rabbit says that it’s great fun to play in the snow,” he said. Mrs. Woodchuck couldn’t help smiling; for at that very moment Billy was yawning as wide a yawn as you ever saw on a young chuck’s face. Though he didn’t know it, he was already growing drowsy. And his mother knew very well that no matter how much he wanted to stay awake, in a short time he would be sound asleep. Though Jimmy Rabbit came to Billy’s house the very next day and called and called to him, he never came out at all. <hr /> [108] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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