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 
