Johnny Chuck smiled and made the dirt fly. “It
certainly would be easier to dig,” said he,
when he stopped for breath, “easier for me and
easier for Bowser the Hound or for old Granny Fox,
if either wanted to dig us out. Now, these old
roots are just far enough apart for us to go in and
out. They make a beautiful doorway. But Bowser
the Hound cannot get through if he tries, and he can’t
make our doorway any larger. Don’t you
see how safe it is?”
Polly Chuck had to own up that it was safer than a
home in the open could possibly be, and Johnny went
on digging. He made a long hall down to the snuggest
of bedrooms, deep, deep down under ground. Then
he made a long back hall, and all the sand from this
he carried out the front way. By and by he made
a back door at the end of the back hall, and it opened
right behind a big stone fallen from the old stone
wall. You would never have guessed that there
was a back door there.
His new house was finished now, and Johnny Chuck and
Polly Chuck sat on the door-step and watched jolly,
round, red Mr. Sun go to bed behind the Purple Hills
and were happy.
SAMMY JAY FINDS THE NEW HOME
Johnny Chuck was missed from his old home on the Green
Meadows. If he had known how much he was missed,
he certainly would have tried to go back for at least
a call on his old neighbors. There had been great
surprise when it had been discovered that Jimmy Skunk
was living in Johnny’s old house, and at first
some of the little meadow people were inclined to
look at Jimmy a wee bit distrustfully when he told
how Johnny Chuck had given away his house.
When Johnny sent back word by the Merry Little Breezes
that it was true, they believed Jimmy Skunk and forgot
the unpleasant things that they had begun to hint
at about him. But they one and all thought that
Johnny Chuck must be crazy. Yes, Sir, they thought
that Johnny Chuck must be crazy. They were sure
of it when the Merry Little Breezes brought word of
how Johnny had started out to see the world.
But everybody was so busy about their own affairs
in the beautiful bright spring-time that they couldn’t
spend much time wondering about Johnny Chuck.
They missed him every time they passed his old house
and then forgot him; that is, most of the little meadow
people did.
Peter Rabbit didn’t. Peter used to stop
every day to gossip with Johnny Chuck and tell him
all the news, and now that Johnny Chuck was no longer
there, Peter missed him greatly. Jimmy Skunk was
always asleep or off somewhere. Besides, he was
such a traveler that he knew all the news almost as
soon as Peter himself.
The Merry Little Breezes told Peter that Johnny Chuck
was still on the Green Meadows, hunting for a new
home, so Peter made up his mind that just as soon
as Johnny got settled, Peter would hunt him up and
call. You see, he never dreamed that Johnny would
leave the Green Meadows, and he thought that of course
the Merry Little Breezes would tell him just where
Johnny Chuck’s new house was, whenever it was
built. But there is where Peter made a mistake.
