ho had seized it from the Indians, wood-chucks,
hares, foxes and other original proprietors, without, as I hear, making
them any return whatever; who, in fact, ejected them without ceremony.
For some years whenever the wood-chucks ate anything that grew on the
land, particularly if it were anything which I had sown or planted, I
attacked them with guns, traps and dogs and killed them when I could.

But one day it occurred to me that perhaps my deed did not fairly
authorize me to behave in just that way towards them, and that I was
playing the role of a small, but very cruel, self-conceited tyrant over
a conquered species whose blood cried out against me from the ground. I
ceased my persecutions and massacres. Twenty or thirty wood-chucks now
live on the premises with me, unmolested, for the most part. They take
about what they want and dig a hole whenever they want a new one. They
are really very peaceable neighbors, and it is rarely that we have a
difference of opinion in the matter of garden truck,--for I still draw
the line at early pease and beans in the garden.

It is, indeed, quite surprising how little they take, or destroy. I do
not believe that in all that time they have done me damages which any
two fair-minded referees would allow me five dollars for. I am sure I
spent more than that for ammunition, to say nothing of time, traps,
dog-food, etc., during the year or two that I was playing the despot and
trying to exterminate them. Now that I have rid my mind of the barbarous
propensity to kill them, I really enjoy seeing them sitting up by their
holes, or peeping at me over the heads of clover.

But a boy naturally likes to use his trap and his gun, especially on any
animal, or bird, which his seniors represent to him as an outlaw. When
the Old Squire set a bounty of five cents upon wood-chuck scalps, the
desire to go on the war-path against the proscribed rodents at once took
possession of us. A number of rusty fox-traps and mink-traps were
brought forth from the wagon-house chamber, to be set at the entrances
of the wood-chucks' holes. We covered the trenchers of the traps
carefully over with loose dirt and attached the chain to stakes, driven
into the ground a little to one side of the hole. In this way five
chucks were trapped in the south field during the week.

Halstead and I were in partnership trapping them, but Addison preferred
to rely on the gun. It is next to impossible to kill a wood-chuck with