After that frightful noise, when her house suddenly grew light, and her husband ran away, Mrs. Woodchuck saw with dismay that there was a big hole in the ceiling. The earth had split open and the daylight was streaming in.

Mr. Woodchuck had been gone only a few moments when dog Spot began to bark. Mrs. Woodchuck could not see him; but she knew his voice only too well.

She was not quite sure what she ought to do. But there she was, with her house broken into, and five children on her hands.

Though she was frightened, she was brave just the same. And she had not the least idea of going anywhere without taking her family with her.

“Follow me!” she cried. And out of the room she hurried, with her youngsters close behind her.

Luckily, Mrs. Woodchuck’s back door was just out of sight of the men. They did not see her at all while she waited and counted her children as they came through the doorway.

They were all there—all five of them. And as soon as she had counted the fifth one, Mrs. Woodchuck dashed off across the pasture, in exactly the opposite direction to that in which she could still hear old Spot barking.

Soon they were in the woods. And Mrs. Woodchuck led the way to an old empty house, where her grandmother had once lived. It was not so good a house as the one they had just left. But it was much better than none at all.

“Mother! What was that dreadful sound?” Billy asked when they had begun to get over their fright. His ears still rang.

“I’m not sure,” said Mrs. Woodchuck. “But it seemed to me that Farmer Green was shooting away the stumps in the pasture. Perhaps you didn’t know that there was an old stump quite near our bedroom. And when the gun went off it must have shot straight down into our house.”

“But father said he saw no gun,” Billy said.

“Yes, I know he did,” Mrs. Woodchuck said. “And neither did I. But I smelled powder. So I can’t be far wrong.”

And, of course, the good old lady was not. Perhaps you have already guessed that Farmer Green was blasting away the stumps with powder. Anyhow, the Woodchuck family had a narrow escape.

And as for Mr. Woodchuck, he was never seen in those parts afterward. When anyone asked for him, his wife always said that he had gone on a visit to see his cousin, who lived in the West, and she really didn’t know when he would come back again. “He didn’t tell me that,” she would explain, “for he left in a great hurry. But I am looking for him every day. The house is so quiet without him.”

And that was quite true. For you see, Mr. Woodchuck was always groaning and complaining about his health.

Perhaps it agreed with him better where he went.