Woodchuck 



much damaged fish line and hook thrown in. He was much 

 too young to eat solid food, so we fed him on milk with a bottle 

 and rubber nipple. When being fed he always sat up perfectly 

 straight, grasping the rubber firmly between his little black hands, 

 which always looked as if clothed in close-fitting black gloves, 

 so sharply was the line drawn between the black of his paws 

 and the brown fur on his wrists and shoulders. When nearly 

 satisfied he would grip it so tightly that none of the milk could 

 escape and, taking it from his mouth, turn away his head for 

 a few seconds of breathing space and then fall to again. He 

 grew rapidly on this diet, and soon developed a liking for 

 green things generally, especially caraway blossoms. As these 

 grew far out of his reach, often three or four feet from the 

 ground, he found it necessary in order to get at them to sit up 

 beside the stem and, grasping it in his paws, bend it over 

 towards him, pulling it down hand over hand until he had 

 reached the umbel shaped cluster of flower, every particle of 

 which he ate, allowing the stalk to spring back into place when he 

 had finished. Strangly enough, he never troubled the vegetables 

 in the garden in any way, although allowed to wander about 

 the place at his own discretion. He managed to get along 

 fairly well with the cats, though there was not much affection 

 on either side. Whenever he saw one of them drinking milk 

 from a saucer, he liked to come up softly from behind and nip 

 its heels, and then scuttle off to some place of concealment in 

 time to escape punishment. He often persisted in this amuse- 

 ment until the cats retired in disgust, whereupon he would pro- 

 ceed to help himself to the milk they had left. If he felt sleepy, 

 he would sit upright, letting his head hang down until his nose 

 almost reached his hind feet, and then drop over on one side, 

 rolled up into a perfect ball. Late in the season, he began to 

 make extensive tunnels about the doorsteps and underneath the 

 paths, the caving in of which was the cause of several mis- 

 haps to various members of the family. Although perfectly 

 familiar, he was never affectionate, and towards the close of 

 summer he left us for his native heath; and the rest of his 

 history is hidden in obscurity, though it is safe to assume that 

 he lived to grow up and eventually developed all the selfish and 

 bearlike traits characteristic of his family. 



'57 



