264 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 



ancient tree ; or even take possession of a cavity 

 in the stone wall that the farmer has thoughtfully 

 provided. The Yankee calls this laziness. Here 

 again the woodchuck protests that such a view is 

 calumnious and unphilosophical. He declares that 

 it is a wicked waste of time and energy to do any- 

 thing avoidable not in the direct line of happiness, 

 which, as every one knows, consists in gambolling 

 among odorous herbage, swinging in the top of a 

 bush, climbing trees, a method of seeing the world 

 every whit as good as laborious travel, soaking 

 for hours in the sunshine, strolling in the moon- 

 light, and contemplating one's increase of fat- 

 ness as autumn approaches. Why work when 

 one may play ? Why play when one may loaf ? 

 Why loaf when one may sleep ? And the 'chuck 

 further complains of the impropriety of harsh 

 criticism from men who boast of their labor-saving 

 machines, which, in his opinion, are labor-making, 

 since they exist in order that two men shall work- 

 but differently where only one worked before. 



" And yet," he goes on, as he sits up with his 

 gray old back leaning comfortably against a smooth 

 boulder, and chatters at me, with a burr in his 

 speech and clattering teeth that make his words 

 difficult to understand at first, - 



" And yet they call it ' labor-saving,' and say 

 that they are doing this ceaseless, prodigious 

 struggling, in order to get a chance to rest and en- 

 joy themselves. It's too deep for a woodchuck! 



