And this boy,
who was in training for public life, would do this sort of thing all
the afternoon, and when the sun told him that he had spent long
enough time cutting brush, he would industriously go home as innocent
as anybody. There are few such boys as this nowadays; and that is
the reason why the New England pastures are so much overgrown with
brush.
John himself preferred to hunt the pugnacious woodchuck. He bore a
special grudge against this clover-eater, beyond the usual hostility
that boys feel for any wild animal. One day on his way to school a
woodchuck crossed the road before him, and John gave chase. The
woodchuck scrambled into an orchard and climbed a small apple-tree.
John thought this a most cowardly and unfair retreat, and stood under
the tree and taunted the animal and stoned it. Thereupon the
woodchuck dropped down on John and seized him by the leg of his
trousers. John was both enraged and scared by this dastardly attack;
the teeth of the enemy went through the cloth and met; and there he
hung.
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