256 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 



emigrants settled there, planting clover-fields and 

 garden-patches, when the woodchucks followed to 

 see that everything was right, and that none of 

 the good things should be wasted. They still 

 make their winter homes more often in the woods, 

 in all parts of the country, than in cleared ground. 



Finding an abundance to eat, and being eager 

 to fulfil their whole duty in that direction, the 

 young ones grow rapidly, and carry their games 

 farther and farther afield. Woodchucks do not 

 dwell in companies, nor make "towns," like their 

 Western cousins, the prairie-dogs ; but it is never 

 far to a neighbor's hole, visits back and forth soon 

 become frequent, and the next thing one knows 

 the youngsters are big and bold enough to go 

 wandering off by themselves, seeking adventures 

 and often finding them. 



Now is the time in these long midsummer 

 days, when the hay is ripening and garden-sauce is 

 at its best when that old quarrel with the farmer 

 begins, because he will not take their view of 

 things. The woodchuck can no more see the 

 propriety of fencing off though he admits that 

 stone walls are fine refuges, in case he has to run 

 for it a space of the very finest fodder, than the 

 British peasant can see the right of shutting him out 

 of a grove where there are wild rabbits, or forbid- 

 ding him to fish in a certain stream. So he climbs 

 over, or digs under, or creeps through, the fence, 

 and makes a path or a playground for himself 



