Clover Hill

A Story for All Ages by Aaron McEmrys

Marmot Mountain is a tall and beautiful mountain. Humans call it something else of course, because humans tend to assume that nothing in this world has a name until they give it one.

But the marmots have lived on those rocky slopes for as long as anyone can remember and it is named after them.

Marmots look like a cross between a beaver and a very fat ground-squirrel. The soft sleek fur of their bellies is often a buttery yellow color, and their eyes are always curious.

Their village lies under the earth, a network of warm tunnels that open into the clean air above: in Marmot Meadow, where the sweetest flowers grow, at Table Rock, which is the best place for sunbathing and at the Burbling Stream, where they swim and bathe and frolic.

Marmots love to take long naps, nibble on sweet grass and get as fat as they possibly can. But what they love more than anything in the whole world, is to pose for photographs!

“Oh, me, well I suppose you can take my picture – wait let me turn, my left side is really best – here I am deep and introspective, now cute and cuddly, now brave and watchful – did you get my super fluffy tail?” and click, click, click go the cameras all day long as a whole village of marmots flirt and flounce and vogue.

At first this worked out very well for the marmots because their days were full of their favorite things: posing and getting as fat as possible! Marmots normally eat grass and sweet meadow clover, but, in an effort to lure the marmots closer tourists started throwing them snacks: trail mix, sandwiches, even candy bars (marmots LOVE Snicker’s Bars!), and so the marmots stopped eating the sweet grass they used to love. They even stopped storing grass for emergencies because they were too busy posing, too busy eating and so round and fat they could barely squeeze into their own holes.

But click, click, click went the cameras.

Johnny Chuck, a grizzled old marmot so old that his yellow belly had gone grey, was not at all happy. Of course he liked to pose as much as any self-respecting marmot – but enough was enough.

“This has gone too far”, he shouted, “winter is coming and we have no food stored.” “Put down that Big Mac and help me or we will all starve when the snow falls!”

But nobody listened. They were fat and happy and content in the moment, and never for a moment imagined that things could change.

And so click, click, click went the cameras.

But the weather did begin to change: the skies darkened and a cold wind sliced down the mountain.

And with every step that winter drew nearer – fewer tourists came up the trail to snap photos and throw snacks to the marmots.

The cameras stopped clicking and all was snow and ice.

The marmots were hungry and every day their wonderful roundedness faded like a leaking balloon. Old Johnny Chuck had stored away as much grass and clover as he could, but he was only one marmot and an old one at that, so there was simply not enough to eat.

The children cried themselves to sleep at night with hunger while their parents, who had been so jolly and foolish just weeks before watched helplessly.

Johnny Chuck couldn’t bear to see his grandchildren suffer, so almost every day he made the long and dangerous journey all the way down the mountain to a place where he could sometimes find a clump of brown grass here or there to carry all the way back up the mountain, his whiskers frozen stiff in the driving snow.

The other marmots had grown so soft that no one but old Johnny had the strength to make it down the mountain and back. And so he forged his way down the mountain and back up again day after day as winter unsheathed its claws.

One day the old marmot woke up too sick to move. His little nose was hot with fever and within just a few hours he was gone.

The marmots buried him on a little hill in the meadow. They stood in the driving snow for a long time before going back to their now-lonely burrows.

The next morning, the marmots awoke to a very strange sight. In the meadow, right on the hill where they had buried old Johnny, there was a big round circle without any snow. And inside that snowless circle had grown a big patch of the tallest, sweetest, most delicious clover anyone had ever seen!

They couldn’t believe their eyes, but it was true. They carried as much as they could back to their burrows, trying to get as much done as possible before the next storm.

The next storm came. And the next after that. But each morning, no matter how much it had snowed the night before, Johnny’s little hill was warm and clear and covered with clover.

And so the marmots survived that terrible winter.

The Marmots of Marmot Mountain are still there to this day as far as I know, and they still love to pose and posture and flirt with the camera – but they also remember how to take care of themselves and to prepare for the future, for the wind and snow, they know – will come again.

Winter clover no longer magically grows on the hill where Johnny Chuck is buried, for his people no longer need it. But they don’t want to forget, so now that hill is known far and wide as “Clover Hill” and every baby marmot learns about brave old Johnny Chuck from almost the first time they open their eyes.