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 'i 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! 



