Uncle Andy looked at him suspiciously. Like so many other story-tellers,
he preferred to make all the jokes himself. He was suspicious of other
people's jokes. But the Babe's round, attentive eyes were as innocent as
the sky.

"No," said he gravely; "_that_ was something she could not help. It was
an accident. It has nothing to do with Young Grumpy, but since you've
asked me about it I had better tell you at once and save interruptions.

"You see it was this way. Before she came to live on the Anderson Farm
she used to have a burrow over on the other side of the Ridge, where the
people went in for a good deal of trapping and snaring. One day someone
set a steel trap just in front of her burrow. Of course she put her foot
into it at the first chance. It was terrible. You know the grip of
those steel jaws, for I've seen you trying to open them. She was game,
however--they're always game, these woodchucks. Instead of squealing and
hopping about and losing her wits and using up her strength, she just
popped back into her hole and dragged the trap in with her as far as it
would go. That was not very far, of course, because the man who set it
had chained it to a stump outside. But she thought it better, in such a
trouble, to be out of range of unsympathetic eyes. There in the hole she
tugged and wrenched at the cruel biting thing till even her obstinacy had
to acknowledge that it was impossible to pull herself free. Then she
tried blocking up the hole behind her, thinking perhaps that the trap, on
finding itself thus imprisoned in the burrow, would get frightened and
let go its hold. Disappointed in this hope, she decided to adopt heroic
measures. With magnificent nerve she calmly set to work and _gnawed off_
the foot which had been so idiotic as to get itself caught. She would
have nothing more to do with the fool thing. She just left it there in