njoying himself inside. Now, let's go out on the porch while I
smoke;" and the old man led the way, and lighted up the old churn, and
puffed away a while, and the boy was in a hurry to get away with the
other boys; and finally the boys came up on the porch, and the dog went
up to Uncle Ike and licked his hand, as though he knew the old man was
a friend of dogs and boys. "What's this scar on his nose? Woodchuck bite
him?"

"Yes, sir," said one of the boys. "And this one on the under lip?" said
the old man. "Looks like a gopher had took a bite out of that lip."

"That's what it was," said another boy, and they all laughed to think
that a dignified old man like Uncle Ike could tell all about the scars
on a cheap dog. "Well, boys, I won't detain you if you are going out to
exercise the dog on woodchucks or gophers. But let me tell you this,"
and he puffed quite a little while on the pipe, and seemed to be harking
away back to the bark of the dog friend of his boyhood, and the boys
could almost see the dirt flying out of an old-time woodchuck hole
as the dog of Uncle Ike's memory was digging and biting at roots, and
snarling at a woodchuck that was safe enough away down below the ground.
"Let me tell you something. You want to play fair with the dog. A
dog has got more sense than some men. He can tell a loafer, after one
wood-chuck hunt. The boy who gets interested when the clog is digging
out a woodchuck, gets down on his knees and pushes the dirt away, and
pats the dog, and encourages him, and when he comes to a root, takes his
knife and cuts it away, is the thoroughbred that the dog will tie to;
but the boy who sits in the shade and sicks the dog on, and don't help,
but bets they don't get the woodchuck, and when the dog and his working
partner pulls the woodchuck out, gets up out of the shade and begins to
talk about how we got the woodchuck, is the loafer. He is the kind of
fellow who will encourage others to enlist and go to war, in later life,
while he stays home and kicks about the way the war is conducted, and
shaves mortgages on the homes of soldiers, and forecloses them. That
kind of a boy will be the one who will lie in the shade when he grows
up, and not work in the sun. Didn't you ever see a dog half-way down a
woodchuck hole, kicking dirt into the bosom of the boy's pants who is
backing him, suddenly back out of the hole, wag his tail and wink his
eyes, full of dirt, at the boy who is working the hole with him