Chapter X
THE WOODCHUCKS
Wandering up the hillside, looking here and there, Poor Cecco presently came upon what seemed a very nice cave, warm and dry, and just big enough for the three of them, hollowed out at the foot of a tall rock. Here was luck certainly!
Poor Cecco had always had a passion for caves, and this was quite the best cave he had ever seen, and exactly the right size, whereas caves as a rule are apt to be either too big for cosiness, or else too small to get into, either of which is a serious fault. The sight of this one, he thought, would surely cheer even Jensina up, but as long as Bulka was already asleep, and Jensina probably wouldn’t come out of her sulks for another half hour at least, he might as well spend that time in making it still more comfortable. So he went out and began to hunt around in the moonlight for bits of moss and dry grass, enough to make a comfortable bed for all three.
It took quite a little while before he had collected all he needed and sorted it out into heaps, the softest for Jensina, the next best for Bulka, and the hard bits and odds and ends for himself, as he could sleep on anything. When he had got it all together and carried it into the cave, it made such a pile that the cave itself seemed to look smaller, and Poor Cecco decided he might as well make a good job while he was about it, and hollow out the end a little more so as to have plenty of room to sleep in.
While he was scooping busily away with his paws, singing to himself and thinking how nice it would all be when it was finished, all at once he felt a torrent of loose earth raining down on his head; the wall of the cave on which he was working gave way at the same instant, and he fell headlong through.
When he picked himself up, covered with dust and dirt, Poor Cecco found to his surprise that he was in a large and comfortable kitchen. A fat elderly woodchuck, with bushy white whiskers, sat smoking in a corner; his wife, with an apron tied round her enormous waist, was preparing supper at the table, and from a bed in the corner three small woodchucks, equally fat, poked their heads out, each with a white nightcap on, to see what had happened. All five stared at Poor Cecco in astonishment and some indignation, for it is certainly not usual for a total stranger to drop in on one suddenly through the kitchen ceiling at supper time, especially when he brings half the ceiling with him, as Poor Cecco had unfortunately done.
The old woodchuck took his pipe from his mouth and stared from the hole in the ceiling to Poor Cecco, and back at the ceiling again, unable to say a word, while his whiskers bristled more and more, his eyes grew rounder and rounder, and his whole body swelled up as if he were going to burst.
At last he recovered sufficiently to say, in a very angry voice:
“Wipe your feet when you come in at the door!”
This seemed to Poor Cecco unnecessary, considering he had come by the roof, but as he felt himself to be in the wrong, in any case, he began at once to excuse himself for his entrance.
“Rubbish!” said the woodchuck. “No sensible person keeps their front door in the ceiling! When you don’t see what you want, ask for it, and don’t go blundering about like that!”
Mrs. Woodchuck, who had said nothing all this while, but after one glance went on calmly slicing vegetables, now addressed her husband without looking up.
“It’s all your own shiftlessness!” she said. “Didn’t I tell you a dozen times, if I’ve told you once, that if you didn’t hike yourself up there and do something to that roof before the bad weather set in anything was liable to beat in on us? But there you set, and if the house itself fell in you wouldn’t lift a finger except to blame some one else. Don’t talk to me about it!”
Mr. Woodchuck, at this, seemed to sink down in his chair. He cast a timid glance at his wife, and hastily putting the pipe back in his mouth began to smoke again in great puffs. Mrs. Woodchuck, who had now finished slicing her last carrot, swept all the vegetables into a yellow bowl which she set down on the table with a slam, before turning to Poor Cecco.
“Sit down, young man,” she said, “if you can find a place, and let me tell you at once we never subscribe to anything. I have no aches nor pains in my back, and we all bought new toothbrushes last week.”
“I didn’t come to sell anything,” said Poor Cecco, rather bewildered. “I dropped in quite by accident!” And he began to explain to Mrs. Woodchuck, who seemed the more sensible of the two, how he came to be in the cave, and about Jensina and Bulka, whom he had left behind in the field.
“Then in that case,” said Mrs. Woodchuck briskly, “the best thing you can do is to fetch your two friends and spend the night here, if the young lady isn’t too particular. We are simple folk and you must take us as you find us. We get along somehow. Luckily the farmer is keeping a better garden this year, and my old man gets a job when he can, but the lumber trade has been slack lately. The last few months I’ve had to take in washing to help out; to tell the truth the whole house is full up with it now and that’s why we’ve so little room. We’ve even had to move the beds into the kitchen, as you can see for yourself; I was thinking only to-day, I don’t see how I can possibly
JENSINA PROVES A BORN HOUSEWIFE
By tea-time Jensina had washed one hundred and thirteen bundles of laundry, which was certainly, she thought, some help to her hostess, Mrs. Woodchuck. …
take in any more, do what I will, there’s no space left for it anywhere!”
Looking about him, Poor Cecco saw that every corner of the room was piled with bundles of laundry, each tied up just as it had come from the owner; in fact there was very little space left anywhere, and he thought at once that Mrs. Woodchuck would do better, instead of taking so much washing in, to send some of it out again, and he told her so.
“I know!” said Mrs. Woodchuck, untying her apron and rolling it into a ball which she flung under the table. “I know—I’ve thought so myself at times, but what can I do? There’s so much to look after in this house that I never get a minute, and besides—I hate washing. I was never brought up to it! And now,” she continued, “you had better go and fetch your friends and we’ll have a little supper.”
Mr. Woodchuck led Poor Cecco to the real doorway, down a passage so stacked with washing on either side that the woodchuck, being extremely fat, had great difficulty in squeezing past. “You see how it is,” he whispered hoarsely, pointing with his pipe. “We’re being pushed out of house and home, and to hear the old woman talk you’d think no one did a hand’s turn but herself!”
Poor Cecco ran down the hill, glad to be in the open air again. The ball was over; the lights were turned out, the placard taken in, and the door of the molehill shut fast. Jensina and Bulka were both sound asleep, leaning on each other’s shoulders; he had some difficulty in rousing them. Bulka in fact scarcely woke at all. He stumbled drowsily up the hill, dragging the string of beads to which he had clung through all his adventures, and when they reached the house Poor Cecco pushed him in at once, head first, among the baby woodchucks, who had pulled the quilt over their heads and were snoring soundly.
Jensina, however, aroused when she found herself in the kitchen, and became quite lively. She gossiped with Mrs. Woodchuck, set the table, washed the dishes and brushed off the crumbs, and altogether made herself more agreeable. And then, weariness overcoming her suddenly, she stretched out on the floor and was immediately fast asleep.
Poor Cecco, who was in no mind to give up the beautiful cave he had taken so much trouble over, went up and spent the night there alone.
He was awakened by the smell of coffee, and the voice of Jensina and Mrs. Woodchuck, who were conversing in the kitchen below him, Mrs. Woodchuck saying: “For my part I like my coffee strong, and as for my husband, he will touch nothing but the very best acorns!”
“That sounds like breakfast!” thought Poor Cecco, and he rose, stretched himself, and trotted round to the front door.
Jensina, who was a born housewife, had been at work early. The kitchen was swept, the beds made, and coffee steaming on the table. Mrs. Woodchuck had dressed the children, and being shortsighted, insisted on buttoning Bulka into the velvet jacket belonging to Ferdinand, the youngest woodchuck, who thereupon burst into loud howls, but the mistake was soon remedied.
After breakfast they were prepared to start on their way, but Mrs. Woodchuck, who was a most hospitable soul, would not hear of this. She had arranged, she said, to invite a few neighbours in that evening to make a little party for Jensina, and it would be too bad to disappoint them.
In return for her kindness Jensina immediately offered to lend a hand with the washing while Mrs. Woodchuck made her preparations for the party. So she set off for the spring, a bundle under each arm, leaving Poor Cecco and Bulka to bring as many more as they could carry, for, she said, one might as well make a good job of it.
The spring was a little distance below the house, in a hollow set about with tall shady grasses. All that Bulka and Poor Cecco need do, therefore, was to stand at the top of the hill and roll the bundles down to her as fast as she needed them, which they did while Jensina spent her day by kneeling at the edge of the spring, splashing merrily about and very contented. By tea time she had washed one hundred and thirteen bundles of laundry, which was certainly, she thought, some little help to her hostess, and as all the water in the spring was now used up it was as well to stop.
So having hung her laundry neatly out to dry on the grasses, she smoothed her hair, dried her hands on a mullein leaf, and went back to the house to await the party.
