people and fat people."

"But I'm not a freak," Billy Woodchuck replied. "Of course, I'm big
for my age. But I'm not a giant."

"Yes, you are," the hedgehog insisted.

"You're a giant squirrel. You look like _him_"--he pointed to a
young fellow called Frisky Squirrel--"only you're ever so much
bigger."

That made Billy Woodchuck very angry. And he began to chatter and
scold.

Wise old Mr. Crow, who sat in a tree nearby, told him to keep his
temper.

"Certainly you are not a squirrel," he said. "It is nonsense to say
that a ground hog is the same as a squirrel----"

Billy Woodchuck's voice broke into a shrill scream. A _ground hog_!
He was terribly angry.

"Why, yes!" Mr. Crow said, nodding his head with a knowing air.
"You're a marmot, you know."

"No, I'm not!" Billy cried. "I'm a woodchuck! That's what I am. And
I'm going home and tell my mother what horrid names you've been
calling me."

Mr. Crow laughed. He said nothing more. But as Billy hurried away
he could hear the young hedgehog calling:

"Ground hog! Marmot! Ground hog! Marmot!" over and over again.

Billy Woodchuck was surprised to see how calm his mother was when
he told her those horrid names. He had rather expected that she
would hurry over to the woods and say a few things to that young
hedgehog, and to old Mr. Crow as well. But she only said:

"Don't be silly! Of course you're a ground hog. You're an American
marmot, too. Though our family has been known in this neighborhood
for many years as the Woodchuck family, you needn't be ashamed of
either of those other names. Isn't 'ground hog' every bit as good a
name as 'hedgehog?'"

Billy Woodchuck began to think it was. And as for "marmot"--that
began to have quite a fine sound in his ears.

"Why can't we change our name to that?" he asked his mother.

But Mrs. Woodchuck shook her head.

"We are plain country people," she said. "Woodchuck is the best
name for us."

[Illustration: "Just Crawl Inside that Old Stump!" Mr. Fox Said]

III

MAGIC

One of the first things Mrs. Woodchuck taught her children was to
beware of dogs and foxes, minks and weasels, skunks and great
horned owls. She often made them say the names of those enemies
over and over again.

For some time Billy Woodchuck was almost afraid to stir out of
doors, for fear he might meet one of those creatures. But at last
as he grew bigger he grew bolder, too. And he began to think that
his mother was just a ner