ttle black-gloved forepaws and
goes to sleep. When the woodchuck is leaner he goes to sleep by
drowsily sitting upright, his head drooping lower and lower until
he finally rolls into a round ball and falls on his side. But in
late October the woodchuck is so nearly round with obesity that he
cannot roll up and I fancy him just withdrawing his nose and his
toes a little farther into himself, and going to sleep in that
attitude with a sigh of content. The woodchuck's chief fame seems
to rest on this trait, his ability to go to sleep before cold
weather and not wake up again until the spring has again brought
out the green things for his delectation. To be sure tradition has
it that the ground hog comes to the mouth of his burrow on
Candlemas Day and looks for his shadow that he may figure out how
much longer he may sleep. But that I take to be a mere literary
furnishing, like the chuck part of the animal's name, brought from
England with the pioneers and adapted to use in this country.
Probably it is said in England of the dormouse, which also sleeps
winters, as does the woodchuck, though I believe lightly compared
with our animal. The woodchuck is far too sound a sleeper to wake
up on a February day, whatever the inducements.

That matter is no more to be taken seriously than is the old-time
Yankee query--

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck,
If a woodchuck would chuck wood?

which seems to me to emphasize the whole popular conception of the
animal. Of all the common New England animals he is the one taken
least seriously. Even if he does eat up all our summer garden we
are apt to grin as we bear it; or if we do go out and "get" him,
we do it with a forgiving, pitying smile.

CHAPTER XII

ALONG THE SALT MARSHES

When the wind is east Sumner's Islands seems to tug at its
moorings like a cruiser swinging at a short hawser in the shelter
of Stony beach. If you will stand on the tip of its gray rock prow
and face the sea it is hard not to feel the rise and fall of
surges under you, and in fancy you have one ear cocked for the
boatswain's whistle and the call to the watch to bear a hand and
get the anchor aboard. Just a moment and you will feel the pulse
of the screw, hear the clink-clank of shovels and slice-bars,
tinkling faintly up the ventilator; one bell will sound in the
engine room and under slowest speed she will fall away from the
sheltering beach, round the fragrant greenery of the Glade