252 WILD NEIGHBORS chap. 



dinner, shakes his fist over the fence, muttering 

 " Durn that 'chuck ! " whereupon the animal sits 

 up peart, as every independent New Englander 

 has a right to do, and whistles back : " Keep cool ; 

 your old lettuce wasn't much good anyhow ! " 



Surely there are excellent reasons why the 

 animal should thrive and increase, in spite of 

 widening civilization, from the Housatonic to the 

 St. Croix, and from Lake Champlain to Cape Cod, 

 for not only the physical conditions, but the mental 

 and moral atmosphere, of New England suit him. 

 He approves of Yankee institutions, and does his 

 best to fall in with them and be pleasant about it. 

 It is therefore disheartening that he is often mis- 

 understood. He has broad views of hospitality, 

 for example, and it pains him to find himself 

 unwelcome in the farmer's garden, — positively in 

 peril of violence, sometimes, — when he himself 

 is entirely willing that his human neighbors should 

 visit his meadow and clover-field, and even carry 

 away as much of the crop as they like, since the 

 good Lord has sent enough for all. 



Other slight misunderstandings exist; but, on 

 the whole, the two New Englanders differ more in 

 the number of their legs than in anything else, — 

 except, perhaps, in views as to the object of life, 

 which is not a matter for quarrelling between 

 friends. Their aims are substantially the same, — 

 in a word, to get the most for the least ; and, on 

 the whole, the four-legged one seems to have 



