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But in late October the woodchuck is so nearly round with obesity that he cannot roll up and I fancy him just withdrawing his nose and his toes a little farther into himself, and going to sleep in that attitude with a sigh of content.
And he ran like a gray streak back across the Wide Prairie toward the Big Green Woods. The next morning quite early Doctor Rabbit received a call to visit a new Woodchuck family that had recently moved into the north part of the Big Green Woods. Doctor Rabbit told Father Woodchuck, who came over after him, that he would be along in a very few moments. Then he shut the door and began to get ready.
Then like a flash she would leap to her feet, and whirl round and round until from very giddiness she would stagger and fall. She would lay hold of the straw with her teeth, and shake it as a dog shakes a struggling woodchuck; then dashing it from her mouth, she would seize hold of her own sides, and send herself.
Well, Sir, these races dying out, the white man has to acclimate himself. It takes him a good while; but he will come all right by-and-by, Sir, as sound as a woodchuck, as sound as a musquash! A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Huron and all the rest of 'em for wash-basins! A new race, and a whole new world for the new-born human soul to work in!
"I came in to get out of the wet," answered the little rabbit, and then the voice replied: "What! Is it raining? I'll lend you an umbrella!" and an old woodchuck opened a little door in the side of the stump and winked at Billy Bunny.
Didn't you ever see a dog half-way down a woodchuck hole, kicking dirt into the bosom of the boy's pants who is backing him, suddenly back out of the hole, wag his tail and wink his eyes, full of dirt, at the boy who is working the hole with him, and then run out his tongue and loll, and look at the fellows who are sitting around waiting for the last act, in the shade, and say to them, as plain as a dog can talk, 'You fellows make me tired.
"I'm not one bit sorry for him," muttered the Babe in spite of himself. "He had no business there at all." "The mother of the woodchuck family," went on Uncle Andy, "was not so cross as the father, but she was very careless. She would sit upon her fat haunches in the door of the burrow while the babies were nibbling around outside, pretending to keep an eye on them.
The porcupine's great chisel-like teeth, which are quite as formidable as those of the woodchuck, he does not appear to use at all in his defense, but relies entirely upon his quills, and when those fail him he is done for. I once passed a summer night alone upon the highest peak of the Catskills, Slide Mountain. I soon found there were numerous porcupines that desired to keep me company.
With his head on one side, Billy Woodchuck inspected it. "It's well made," he said, "but of course it's entirely too small for my house. If you work for me you'll have to dig bigger than that." That speech did not please Grandfather Mole. "Small doorways are the only kind to have," he declared. "I wouldn't make a bigger one for anybody not even for Farmer Green himself."
And they both declared that they were glad they were not going to the party. Old Mr. Crow carried the news far and wide. It was he that told Billy Woodchuck, in Farmer Green's clover patch. And Billy Woodchuck almost choked over a clover top, he was so excited. "Where's Jimmy Rabbit?" he asked Mr. Crow. "I want to ask him something." "I couldn't say where he is," said Mr. Crow.
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