THE WAYS OF THE WOODCHUCK 213 



tire and a proper subject for extermination. Not 

 one of us could have persuaded his father to spare a 

 chuck. So that story, above all others, prepared our 

 minds for a just appreciation of Webster's genius. 



Times, have changed now, and Readers with them. 

 The story of Webster's first case has no doubt gone 

 the way of "Kentucky Belle" and the rest of the 

 Civil War ballads. But the woodchuck hasn't 

 changed a bit, neither has he been exterminated. 

 He still burrows in field and pasture and wood, he 

 still suns himself on a stump in the clearing, he still 

 eats the hearts from the farmers' cabbages, and 

 he still comes out of his hole on Candlemas Day to 

 look at his shadow and make an annual "weather 

 story" for the urban newspapers — as "Mr. Wood- 

 chuck" in most journals, as "Mr. Ground-hog" 

 in those published in New York, where blueberries 

 are called huckleberries, and doughnuts crullers. 

 "Mr. Ground-hog came out of his hole this morning 

 and saw his shadow, so we are in for six weeks more 

 of winter," says the afternoon paper on February 2d. 

 You have an odd vision of a dirty, black muzzle 

 nosing up in front of the City Hall and taking a 

 squint at the Woolworth Tower. And then you 

 smile — smile to think how this humble rodent of 

 our fields, and this homely superstition about him 

 which grew up in our pioneer country, have power 

 to persist and get talked about on the front pages 

 of our newspapers in our busiest cities, and in brazen 

 defiance of our scientific weather bureau. Surely, 

 "Mr. Ground-hog" has not been forgotten. He is 

 our surest reminder of those early days when Amer- 

 ica was a land of agricultural pioneers. 



