One day last week, Mrs. Claus was heard shouting at the top of her voice. Everyone heard her yells throughout the entire elf workshop.

Jo-Jo, the snow gopher, and his cousin Baff, the beaver, ran over to Mrs. Claus to see if they could help.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jo-Jo with excitement in his voice.

“Are you all right?” added Baff with a worried look on his face.

Mrs. Claus held up a broom in front of the pair and said one word.

“ANTS!”

“How can there be ants?” asked Jo-Jo, “I do not even see a picnic.”

“Besides”, added Baff, “ants only hang around under the ground or near wood. The ground is too frozen to dig and the only wood around is either at my tree house or here in the workshop.”

“That is right,” agreed Mrs. Claus, “and that is why I have my broom ready.”

“It sounds like you need an expert,” stated Jo-Jo. He quickly pulled a cape, an odd hat, a bubble pipe and a magnifying glass from his parka. He quickly donned the clothing and announced, “Master detective, Sherlock Gopher here to serve you.” He began running back and forth across the floor looking through his magnifying glass.

“Find anything?” asked Baff.

“No! No ant tracks here” replied Jo-Jo

“But I heard some elves talking about ants”, a worried Mrs. Claus cried.

“Wait a minute”, shouted Jo-Jo, pointing to a large wooden flat thing with glass sides. “Looks like a great big wooden ant farm”

Just then ProPica, the world’s smallest little girl elf ran up to Mrs. Claus.

“Look at what Mr. Jingeling made me, a small key to wind up the wooden toy ants that live in the wooden toy ant farm.”

“So that is why I heard the elves talking about ants”, said a relieved and smiling Mrs. Claus.

“And here they come” said Baff, pointing to what seemed a hundred marching ants. As they got closer, they seemed to be singing.

“Num, Num, Num, we are the size of thumbs, thumbs, thumbs. When we are wound up, we walk, When we are wound up, we talk. We are made of wood, we don’t get dirty. We walk and talk and our leader’s name is Bertie. Num, Num, Num”

The ants then walked into the ant farm and there was silence.

“That solves the mystery of the ants!” said Baff, as he pats ProPica’s head.

“All of this talk about ants”, began Mrs. Claus, “makes me think about picnics, I will make some sandwiches for us”

“But Mrs. Claus,” asked Jo-Jo, “if there are wooden ants, does that mean we will have wooden sandwiches?”

Everyone laughed, thinking how silly Jo-Jo can be.