CHAPTER XI 



THE WAY OF A WOODCHUCK 



The memory of my first glimpse of a wood- 

 chuck always reminds me of an old story which 

 needs to be retold that it may point my moral 

 even though it does not adorn my tale. 



A minister, supplying for a time in a country 

 parish, took a pleasant path through the fields to 

 the church of a Sunday morning just before the 

 service. There he found a boy digging most 

 furiously in the sandy ground. 



"My lad," said the minister, in kindly reproof, 

 "you ought not to do this on Sunday morning un- 

 less it is a labor of necessity." 



"I don't know nuthin' abouft necessity," replied 

 the boy without stopping for a moment, "but I've 

 got to get this woodchuck. The minister's 

 comin' to dinner." 



Nobody has ever told whether the boy and 

 after him the minister got the woodchuck or 

 not, but there is at least an even chance that he did 

 not, for a woodchuck in sarfdy ground will move 



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