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And whenever he had a holiday, he used to expend an amount of labor and ingenuity in the pursuit of woodchucks that would have made his for tune in any useful pursuit. There was a hill pasture, down on one side of which ran a small brook, and this pasture was full of woodchuck-holes. It required the assistance of several boys to capture a woodchuck.
One day, sitting thus, he discovered a woodchuck about forty rods from the house, on a steep side-hill, feeding about near his hole, which was beneath a large rock. The old dog, forgetting his stiffness, and remembering the fun he had had with woodchucks in his earlier days, started off at his highest speed, vainly hoping to catch this one before he could get to his hole.
I suspect them of standing immobile only at their will and of being capable of trooping up hill and over into some other pasture should they see fit, as readily as the woodchucks would, or any other four-footed denizens of the place. The greater trees of the pasture do not seem to carry such personality. Many of them are like structures rather than people.
Whatever resentment the tiller of the soil might feel against the Indian's hunting quail on his land, he always welcomed him as a killer of woodchucks. And the Indian looked on this animal as fair game and most excellent eating. Rolf watched eagerly when Quonab, taking his bow and arrows, said they were going out for a meat hunt.
Sniffing the ground, near the side of the cabin, she had spied a dog with a soft brown nose, a shaggy, red brown body and a tail standing out tense and straight. It was a brown setter, and Madge knew he was probably hunting for woodchucks. Surely the presence of the dog meant a master somewhere near.
Instead of the hungry winter howl of the wolf or the whining snarl of the sneaking lynx the air is now filled with happier sounds: ducks are quacking; geese are honking; waveys are cackling as they fly northward; squirrels among the spruce trees chatter noisily; on sandy ridges woodchucks whistle excitedly; back deep in the birch thicket partridges are drumming, and all the woodland is musical with the song of birds.
At midsummer he retired to the wilderness, to try his plan where the woodchucks were without prejudices and huckleberry-bushes were hospitably full. A sunstroke unfortunately spoilt his plan, and he returned to semi-civilization a sadder and wiser man.
I love to amuse myself, when walking through the market, by asking the old aunties, and the young aunties, too, the names of their various "yarbs." It seems as if they must trip on the simplest names. Bloodroot they generally call "grubroot;" trailing arbutus goes by the names of "troling" arbutus, "training arbuty-flower," and ground "ivory;" in Virginia they call woodchucks "moonacks."
The country had been swept clean by the fire-broom. Not a living creature remained visible. Moles there still might be, and perhaps hares and foxes, woodchucks, groundhogs and a few such animals that by chance had taken earth; but even of these there was no trace. Certainly all larger breeds had been destroyed.
"Peter Levine must have quite a good deal of imagination." "Well, what's the use of standing here?" said Amy, after a moment of silent musing. "Let's look around a little bit and see what we can see." So for a while they thrashed around in the bush, accomplishing very little besides scaring some rabbits and woodchucks into their holes.
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