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Read Ebook: The Witch-Maid & Other Verses by Mackellar Dorothea
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Ebook has 164 lines and 4966 words, and 4 pages
"It's very pleasant in this garden," said Twinkle. "I don't mind being here a bit."
"But you can't stay here," replied Mister Woodchuck, "and you ought to be very uncomfortable in my presence. You see, you're one of the deadliest enemies of my race. All you human beings live for or think of is how to torture and destroy woodchucks."
"Oh, no!" she answered. "We have many more important things than that to think of. But when a woodchuck gets eating our clover and the vegetables, and spoils a lot, we just have to do something to stop it. That's why my papa set the trap."
"You're selfish," said Mister Woodchuck, "and you're cruel to poor little animals that can't help themselves, and have to eat what they can find, or starve. There's enough for all of us growing in the broad fields."
Twinkle felt a little ashamed.
"We have to sell the clover and the vegetables to earn our living," she explained; "and if the animals eat them up we can't sell them."
"We don't eat enough to rob you," said the woodchuck, "and the land belonged to the wild creatures long before you people came here and began to farm. And really, there is no reason why you should be so cruel. It hurts dreadfully to be caught in a trap, and an animal captured in that way sometimes has to suffer for many hours before the man comes to kill it. We don't mind the killing so much. Death doesn't last but an instant. But every minute of suffering seems to be an hour."
"That's true," said Twinkle, feeling sorry and repentant. "I'll ask papa never to set another trap."
"That will be some help," returned Mister Woodchuck, more cheerfully, "and I hope you'll not forget the promise when you wake up. But that isn't enough to settle the account for all our past sufferings, I assure you; so I am trying to think of a suitable way to punish you for the past wickedness of your father, and of all other men that have set traps."
"Why, if you feel that way," said the little girl, "you're just as bad as we are!"
"How's that?" asked Mister Woodchuck, pausing in his walk to look at her.
"It's as naughty to want revenge as it is to be selfish and cruel," she said.
"I believe you are right about that," answered the animal, taking off his silk hat and rubbing the fur smooth with his elbow. "But woodchucks are not perfect, any more than men are, so you'll have to take us as you find us. And now I'll call my family, and exhibit you to them. The children, especially, will enjoy seeing the wild human girl I've had the luck to capture."
"Wild!" she cried, indignantly.
"If you're not wild now, you will be before you wake up," he said.
BUT Mister Woodchuck had no need to call his family, for just as he spoke a chatter of voices was heard and Mrs. Woodchuck came walking down a path of the garden with several young woodchucks following after her.
The lady animal was very fussily dressed, with puffs and ruffles and laces all over her silk gown, and perched upon her head was a broad white hat with long ostrich plumes. She was exceedingly fat, even for a woodchuck, and her head fitted close to her body, without any neck whatever to separate them. Although it was shady in the garden, she held a lace parasol over her head, and her walk was so mincing and airy that Twinkle almost laughed in her face.
The young woodchucks were of several sizes and kinds. One little woodchuck girl rolled before her a doll's baby-cab, in which lay a woodchuck doll made of cloth, in quite a perfect imitation of a real woodchuck. It was stuffed with something soft to make it round and fat, and its eyes were two glass beads sewn upon the face. A big boy woodchuck wore knickerbockers and a Tam o' Shanter cap and rolled a hoop; and there were several smaller boy and girl woodchucks, dressed quite as absurdly, who followed after their mother in a long train.
"My dear," said Mister Woodchuck to his wife, "here is a human creature that I captured just outside our front door."
"Huh!" sneered the lady woodchuck, looking at Twinkle in a very haughty way; "why will you bring such an animal into our garden, Leander? It makes me shiver just to look at the horrid thing!"
"Oh, mommer!" yelled one of the children, "see how skinny the beast is!"
"Hasn't any hair on its face at all," said another, "or on its paws!"
"And no sign of a tail!" cried the little woodchuck girl with the doll.
"Yes, it's a very strange and remarkable creature," said the mother. "Don't touch it, my precious darlings. It might bite."
"You needn't worry," said Twinkle, rather provoked at these speeches. "I wouldn't bite a dirty, greasy woodchuck on any account!"
"Whoo! did you hear what she called us, mommer? She says we're greasy and dirty!" shouted the children, and some of them grabbed pebbles from the path in their paws, as if to throw them at Twinkle.
"Tut, tut! don't be cruel," said Mister Woodchuck. "Remember the poor creature is a prisoner, and isn't used to good society; and besides that, she's dreaming."
"Really?" exclaimed Mrs. Woodchuck, looking at the girl curiously.
"To be sure," he answered. "Otherwise she wouldn't see us dressed in such fancy clothes, nor would we be bigger than she is. The whole thing is unnatural, my dear, as you must admit."
"Certainly not," Mister Woodchuck answered; "so this is a fine opportunity for you to study one of those human animals who have always been our worst enemies. You will notice they are very curiously made. Aside from their lack of hair in any place except the top of the head, their paws are formed in a strange manner. Those long slits in them make what are called fingers, and their claws are flat and dull--not at all sharp and strong like ours."
"I think the beast is ugly," said Mrs. Woodchuck. "It would give me the shivers to touch its skinny flesh."
"Just listen to the thing!" said Mrs. Woodchuck, in a horrified tone. "Isn't it wild, though!"
"REALLY," Mister Woodchuck said to his wife, "you should be more considerate of the little human's feelings. She is quite intelligent and tame, for one of her kind, and has a tender heart, I am sure."
"I don't see anything intelligent about her," said the girl woodchuck.
"I guess I've been to school as much as you have," said Twinkle.
"School! Why, what's that?"
"Don't you know what school is?" cried Twinkle, much amused.
"We don't have school here," said Mister Woodchuck, as if proud of the fact.
"Don't you know any geography?" asked the child.
"We haven't any use for it," said Mister Woodchuck; "for we never get far from home, and don't care a rap what state bounds Florida on the south. We don't travel much, and studying geography would be time wasted."
"But don't you study arithmetic?" she asked; "don't you know how to do sums?"
"Why should we?" he returned. "The thing that bothers you humans most, and that's money, is not used by us woodchucks. So we don't need to figure and do sums."
"I don't see how you get along without money," said Twinkle, wonderingly. "You must have to buy all your fine clothes."
"You know very well that woodchucks don't wear clothes, under ordinary circumstances," Mister Woodchuck replied. "It's only because you are dreaming that you see us dressed in this way."
"Perhaps that's true," said Twinkle. "But don't talk to me about not being intelligent, or not knowing things. If you haven't any schools it's certain I know more than your whole family put together!"
"About some things, perhaps," acknowledged Mister Woodchuck. "But tell me: do you know which kind of red clover is the best to eat?"
"No," she said.
"Or how to dig a hole in the ground to live in, with different rooms and passages, so that it slants up hill and the rain won't come in and drown you?"
"No," said Twinkle.
"And could you tell, on the second day of February , whether it's going to be warm weather, or cold, during the next six weeks?"
"I don't believe I could," replied the girl.
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