Southern Christian Advocate

JIMMY COOPER'S WOODCHUCK.

Jimmy Cooper's father owns the flour mill on the stone road, and Jimmy Allen lives in that tiny brown house near the mill. He and Jimmy Cooper are great friends. One day Jimmy Cooper invited Jimmy Allen to help him catch a woodchuck.

"It's as easy as anything if you know how," explained Jimmy Cooper, tossing a clump of grass into the mill pond. "The mill man told me. He says that most woodchucks have a front door and a back door."

"O, I know that much," interrupted Jimmy Allen, and he, too, threw a clump of grass into the mill pond. His clump of grass went farther than Jimmy Cooper's and made bigger circles in the water.

"Well, let's hear you tell what you know," Jimmy Cooper suggested, snatching his hat from the grass as he spoke and making a dive after a butterfly. The butterfly escaped.

"You stop up one end of the burrow so the woodchuck won't get out," continued Jimmy Allen, "and pour in water at the other end until the woodchuck is drowned." Then he made a dive at the butterfly with his old straw hat and caught it.

"That's the way to capture a woodchuck if you want it for pet!" exclaimed Jimmy Cooper, watching the quickly released butterfly float through June sunshine.

"Catch a woodchuck with your hat?" inquired Jimmy Allen.

"No, I mean to catch him alive. My father's mill man says that two boys can do it if one boy holds a basket tight over the front door of the burrow. Then the other boy goes to the back door of the burrow and builds a fire in it. Pretty soon the smoke gets so bad that Mr. Woodchuck thinks his kitchen stove must be smoking. But if he goes back through the long hall and through his bedroom to see what is the matter, he thinks his house is on fire, and straight he goes to the front door, kerbang into the basket! It is just as easy! All you have to do is to shut down the basket tight, and there is your pet woodchuck!"

"That is easy," agreed Jimmy Allen. "Let's try it. I want to catch him in the basket."

"S'pose you dare?" questioned Jimmy Cooper. "Sometimes woodchucks bite."

"Dare! Who's afraid?" asked Jimmy Allen. "Let's go to work, because we ought to build a pen to keep him in."

"And make him a warm little winter house of stones and sod," added Jimmy Cooper. "My father's man says the reason woodchucks get so fat in the summer is because they go to sleep in the autumn and don't wake up until spring. I want my pet woodchuck to be as comfortable as he would be at home."

While the boys built the pen with help and advice from the miller's hired man, they talked of Jimmy's woodchuck.

"It will be such fun to watch him comb his face!" exclaimed Jimmy Cooper.

"Comb his face!" repeated Jimmy Allen in tones of astonishment.

"Yes, sir: that is what 'Johnson's Natural History' says. He will sit on his hind legs like a squirrel and lick and smooth his fur like a cat. He will clean and comb his face with his claws, too! It seems as if I can't wait!"

When all was ready the miller's man left his work to watch the boys catch the woodchuck. When Jimmy Cooper, at one end of the burrow, was about to light his match, he called to Jimmy Allen at the other end. "Basket-basket-watch out!"

Scr-scratch went the match on a brick, and crackle, crackle the fire began to burn. Jimmy Allen wasn't afraid as he clung to the basket against the hillside, but he kept wriggling his bare toes and sending loose stones, bumpety-bang, bumpety-bang, into the river below.

"Watch out! Watch out!" warned Jimmy Cooper at last. "He thinks his house is on fire by this time; pretty smoky in there!"

The next minute something went bang-bump! against the basket, and Jimmy Allen was rolling down hill. If his blouse hadn't caught on some bushes, he might have rolled into the water.

"Where is the woodchuck?" he asked as he scrambled to his feet and tried to pretend that he didn't care if he had skinned his knee.

"Where is he?" repeated Jimmy Cooper. "I'm sure I don't know. I laughed so hard I didn't see what became of him."

"There he is," called the miller's man, pointing to a higher spot on the river bank. "Look, boys, look! He's winkin' at you, I do believe."

Sure enough, there sat the woodchuck on his hind legs gazing down upon the little boys. Possibly he took them for the fire department. Anyway, he made a few cheerful remarks, cleaned his coat, and combed his face. Soon, when the boys were gone, home to his burrow ran Jimmy Cooper's woodchuck, straightened his house, and there he lived happy ever after. -Churchman.