ad to help mamma wash
the dishes and put them away, and then brush up the dining-room and put
it in order. But when the work was done, and she had all the rest of the
afternoon to herself, she decided to go over to the woodchuck's hole and
see how papa had set the trap, and also discover if the woodchuck had
yet been caught.

So the little girl took her blue-and-white sun-bonnet, and climbed over
the garden fence and ran across the corn-field and through the rye until
she came to the red-clover patch on the hill.

She knew perfectly well where the woodchuck's hole was, for she had
looked at it curiously many times; so she approached it carefully and
found the trap set just in front of the hole. If the woodchuck stepped
on it, when he came out, it would grab his leg and hold him fast; and
there was a chain fastened to the trap, and also to a stout post driven
into the ground, so that when the woodchuck was caught he couldn't run
away with the trap.

But although the day was bright and sunshiny, and just the kind of day
woodchucks like, the clover-eater had not yet walked out of his hole to
get caught in the trap.

So Twinkle lay down in the clover-field, half hidden by a small bank in
front of the woodchuck's hole, and began to watch for the little animal
to come out. Her eyes could see right into the hole, which seemed to
slant upward into the hill instead of downward; but of course she
couldn't see very far in, because the hole wasn't straight, and grew
black a little way from the opening.

It was somewhat wearisome, waiting and watching so long, and the warm
sun and the soft chirp of the crickets that hopped through the clover
made Twinkle drowsy. She didn't intend to go to sleep, because then she
might miss the woodchuck; but there was no harm in closing her eyes just
one little minute; so she allowed the long lashes to droop over her
pretty pink cheeks--just because they felt so heavy, and there was no
way to prop them up.

Then, with a start, she opened her eyes again, and saw the trap and the
woodchuck hole just as they were before. Not quite, though, come to look
carefully. The hole seemed to be bigger than at first; yes, strange as
it might seem, the hole was growing bigger every minute! She watched it
with much surprise, and then looked at the trap, which remained the same
size it had always been. And when she turned her eyes upon the hole once
more it had not only become very big and high, but a stone a