John then made a pivot of one leg and whirled himself around,
swinging the woodchuck in the air, until he shook him off; but in his
departure the woodchuck carried away a large piece of John's summer
trousers-leg. The boy never forgot it. And whenever he had a
holiday, he used to expend an amount of labor and ingenuity in the
pursuit of woodchucks that would have made his for tune in any useful
pursuit. There was a hill pasture, down on one side of which ran a
small brook, and this pasture was full of woodchuck-holes. It
required the assistance of several boys to capture a woodchuck. It
was first necessary by patient watching to ascertain that the
woodchuck was at home. When one was seen to enter his burrow, then
all the entries to it except one--there are usually three--were
plugged up with stones. A boy and a dog were then left to watch the
open hole, while John and his comrades went to the brook and began to
dig a canal, to turn the water into the residence of the woodchuck.
This was often a difficult feat of engineering, and a long job.
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