Ix A NATURAL NEW ENGLANDER 265 
If they want to get rid of work, why in the world 
don’t they stop working? Look at Hiram Coffin 
over there. When I was a little cub he lived in 
a log-cabin. I never could get up early enough to 
be ahead of him in the fields, and couldn’t keep 
my eyes open late enough to see him go in. Still 
he sang and whistled (almost as good as a wood- 
chuck, sometimes), and now and then went on a 
spree, so that I concluded he was as happy as he 
knew how to be. Next year he put up an addition 
to his cabin and then had to work so hard to pay 
for it that he had no time to sing at all. Now” — 
pointing a black-gloved paw across the valley — 
“behold that big brick mansion he’s building; 
and look at Atm! He’s bent and stiff and thin. 
Thin? why, he wouldn’t last through the winter 
in the best burrow on the hill! He has to wear 
tight boots and a close collar, and worries from 
morning till night for fear the bank will break, 
or bugs will get into his wheat, or his winter fires 
burn up his new house. 
“Now look at me! In my first year I nearly 
wore myself out digging a long tunnel: some were 
good enough to say it was the finest burrow in the 
valley. Next year I cleaned out a hole left by 
a fool ’chuck that wanted to ‘see the world,’ and 
got nabbed by a dog—and served him right! 
Last year I wasted a beautiful day in enlarging 
acave under a stump. This fall I have my eye 
on a hollow log, and my wife and I will stuff it with 
