CHAPTER I

WINKIE PLAYS TAG

“What shall we do next?” asked Winkie, the wily woodchuck.

“Isn’t it too hot to do anything?” was what Blinkie, her sister, wanted to know. “Let’s just sit here by the front door, where we can easily pop down into our underground house if anything happens.”

“Do you think anything is going to happen?” asked Winkie, who was called wily because she was so smart and careful, always on the lookout for traps and danger. “If you think anything is going to happen,” went on Winkie, speaking to her sister, “I’m going in now and tell mother. I’d tell pa, only he isn’t home yet from the woods, where he went to get something special to eat.”

“Oh, I don’t know that there is any special danger,” said Blinkie, as she pawed out a bit of thistle that had become stuck to her fur. “But it’s too hot to do anything, Winkie.”

“Except to eat clover,” half grunted Blunk, who was the woodchuck brother of Winkie and Blinkie. “Let’s go over in the farmer’s big field and eat a lot more clover,” suggested Blunk. You know clover is what woodchucks like best of all.

“Clover!” laughed Winkie, tapping her brother playfully on his black nose. “If you eat any more clover, Blunk, it will run out of your ears, as grandma says.”

“Pooh! I never eat too much clover!” boasted Blunk. “And I’m going over to the field now and get some more. Do you girls want to come?” he asked. “I know where there’s some clover with red blossoms.”

“Oh, it’s too hot to move, especially with this thick fur we have to wear,” said Blinkie. “In the winter it isn’t bad; but now, with summer coming on, I wish I didn’t have so much fur.”

“Some of it will fall out, so mother said,” explained Winkie. “She told me that the fur of all woodchucks and other animals like us gets thinner in summer.”

“Well, I’m glad of it,” sighed Blinkie, stretching out her two front paws lazily. “I’m so warm now I don’t know what to do!”

“Let’s slide down the back-door hole inside our burrow,” suggested Winkie. “We can have fun that way, and it’s nice and cool away down deep underground. Let’s slide down the back-door hole!”

Woodchucks, you know, have two holes, or doors, leading into their houses, which are dug in the earth below the surface. The reason for this is that if a fox, or other pursuing animal, chases them down one hole they can run out the other.

“Oh, I don’t want to slide down any holes!” complained Blinkie.

“Nor I,” added Blunk. “I’m going over after clover.”

“Don’t let the farmer catch you eating his clover, or he may set a trap for you or fire his gun at you,” warned Blinkie, as her brother waddled off, his little short legs slowly carrying his rather fat body.

“I’ll be careful,” promised Blunk.

Winkie stood for a moment near the edge of the sloping hole that led down into the dark underground house. This hole was the front door of the little woodchuck’s home. The back door was around behind a big rock. The hole had been used so often by the woodchuck family when crawling in and out that the bottom of it was worn smooth. When it rained, and the earth became wet, the front entrance to the burrow was very slippery.

But the back door had been dug down through some earth that had in it many shale-rocks――that is rocks which were little flat pieces of smooth stone. On these it was almost as easy for a woodchuck to slide as it is for a boy or girl to slide or coast on the ice or snow. Winkie knew she did not need to wait until it rained to have a slide on the shale-covered back-door hole, and this she was now eager to do. Only, she didn’t want to play alone!

“Please come on and slide with me,” begged Winkie of Blinkie.

“No, indeed!” answered the other woodchuck girl. “It’s too warm. I’m going to sleep.”

“Well, I’ll have to go by myself then,” said Winkie, a bit sadly. “Will you play after you wake up, Blinkie?”

“Maybe――maybe,” answered Blinkie, sleepily.

“Oh, I never saw such creatures!” murmured Winkie, as she ran along, giving a look toward her sister and a glance over into the next field where Blunk was nibbling clover. “All they think about is eating and sleeping! I’m going to do something! I wish I could have some adventures! That’s what I wish――adventures!

“Flop Ear, the rabbit who used to live here before he went away, had lots of adventures. He told me so when he came here on a visit. Oh dear! I wonder if I’ll ever have any adventures?”

Had she only known it, Winkie was, even then, about to start some very wonderful adventures, which I will tell you about.

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.

“What’s that? You’re going to put me in a bag? Oh, please, Mr. Farmer, don’t put me in a bag!” begged Blinkie. “I didn’t take any of your clover!”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Winkie, as Blinkie sat up, rubbing her eyes. “You must have been dreaming that you were over in the field with Blunk, taking clover! I’m not a farmer, and I haven’t any bag. I just cried, ‘Tag! You’re it!’ Come on and play!”

“Oh, it’s you,” said Blinkie, not frightened now that she saw only her sister. “Yes, I was dreaming. And when you awakened me so suddenly I thought you were a farmer trying to catch me in a bag.”

“Well, come on and have a little tag game and you’ll feel better,” advised Winkie. “I can’t slide any more because mother wants to sleep. Let’s play tag!”

“You go and tag Blunk,” suggested Blinkie. “I’ll be wider awake after that, and then I’ll play. Go and tag Blunk.”

“All right,” agreed Winkie, who was very obliging. “I hope he hasn’t fallen asleep from eating too much clover,” she added.

But Blunk was wide awake. He was sitting up on his haunches, as a dog sits up to beg, and he was slowly nipping off the sweet clover tops and the tender leaves, chewing them very contentedly.

“Hello, Winkie! So you came over, after all, to get something to eat, did you?” asked Blunk.

“No, I came to see you,” replied Winkie. “Tag! You’re it!” she suddenly cried, tapping her brother with an extended paw, and then springing away before he could touch her. “Come on! Chase me!”

Blunk was fonder of games than was his sister Blinkie, who, to tell the truth, was a bit lazy. So when Blunk found he was “it,” he made up his mind not to stay that way any longer than need be.

“Oh, I’ll tag you all right!” he cried, racing after his sister Winkie. “I’ll tag you!”

“If you do, then I’ll tag Blinkie and we can have a regular game!” merrily laughed Winkie, as she sprang over a clump of clover. “This is more fun than sliding down the back-hole door all alone, or even going to sleep. Come on, Blunk! Let’s see you tag me!” she cried.

Nearly always when the woodchuck children played a game of tag, or any other running game, Blunk would easily catch Winkie or Blinkie. For, being a boy woodchuck and strong, he could go faster than the girls. And this time Blunk thought he would have no trouble in tapping Winkie with his paw, tagging her and making her “it.”

But Blunk forgot about all the clover he had eaten. He had, I am sorry to say, rather stuffed himself. He had eaten too much, but not enough to make himself ill, for animals know better than that. But Blunk had swallowed so much clover that his little stomach was sticking out like a toy balloon, and this made him so heavy that he could not run fast.

Because of this, Winkie could easily keep ahead of him. On and on ran the wily little girl woodchuck, laughing and teasing her brother because he could not catch her to tag her.

“Come on! Come on!” cried Winkie. “Why don’t you tag me, Blunk?”

“I will――in a――minute!” panted Blunk. “I――I haven’t started――running――yet!”

He was getting out of breath, and he was beginning to wish he had done what Winkie had asked him to do at first――come and play with her――instead of eating so much clover.

“But I’ll catch her after a while. I always do,” thought Blunk to himself, as he raced on and on, while Winkie, the wily woodchuck, dashed this way and that, making quick turns, which was the best way of avoiding her brother.

“I never knew her to keep away from me so long as this――before. I――I guess I ate too much clover!” panted Blunk.

“I know you did!” called Winkie, laughing, for her brother had said this last thought aloud. “Ha! Ha! You can’t tag me!”

“Yes, I can! There! Now you’re it!” cried Blunk.

He gave a sudden jump, and so did Winkie, for she wanted to keep from being tagged as long as possible. Just as she and Blunk leaped, a harsh voice cried:

“Ha! There’s them pesky woodchucks in my clover again! I’ll fix ’em!”

There was a loud bang, like a clap of thunder, and as Blunk looked back he saw his sister falling in a crumpled heap.