A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



never quite get it into her head that it was not an 

 infringement of her proprietary right in Charlie. 



That this squirrel somehow spread the news 

 that we were a pair of incomprehensible and 

 effeminate duffers who lived on peanuts, without 

 sufficient masculinity to interfere with anything, 

 and that the whole animal creation ought to take 

 advantage of it, I have not the slightest doubt, 

 for it was not long before a woodchuck came in 

 the morning and sat up like a kangaroo on our 

 wire grass, and tried to guy us, casting occasional 

 mild and inquiring glances at our open door. I 

 remembered enough of my natural history to 

 know that this was the American marmot, set 

 down in the vulgar vernacular as the &quot; ground 

 hog,&quot; and loaded by the American farmer with 

 a number of amiable superstitions. But I never 

 knew what a handsome and harmless animal he is 

 till I consented to live in the same dimension of 

 space for a while with him. He would sit there 

 in his marsupial way, and wash his face and comb 

 out his whiskers, seeming to say all the while, &quot; I 

 understand that you re not on the shoot.&quot; By 

 degrees Charlie coaxed him up to the door-step, 

 telling me to keep out of sight, and when the 

 early summer apples came he would roll out a 

 ripe one to him, and we would watch him with 

 amusement sit up and sample it. So this fellow 

 had to be included in the happy family, and we 

 called him &quot; Marmion,&quot; merely on account of the 

 sound, I suppose. 



It was Marmion who made me a Brahmin, or at 

 42 



