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.'' 



'T don't know nuthin' aboiit necessity," replied 

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

 got to gtt 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 saridy ground will move 



136 



