WEBSTER AND THE WOODCHUCK.
Ebenezer Webster, the father of Daniel, was a farmer. The vegetables in his garden had suffered considerably from the depredations of a woodchuck, which had his hole or habitation near the premises. Daniel, some ten or twelve years old, and his older brother, Ezekiel, had set a trap, and finally succeeded in capturing the trespasser. Ezekiel proposed to kill the animal, and end at once all further trouble from him; but Daniel looked with compassion upon his meek, dumb captive, and offered to let him again go free. The boys could not agree, and they appealed to their father to decide the case. “Well, my boys,” said the old gentleman, “I will be the judge. There is the prisoner, [pointing to the woodchuck], and you shall be the counsel, and plead the case for and against his life and liberty.” Ezekiel opened the case with a strong argument, urging the mischievous nature of the criminal, the great harm he had already done; said that much time and labor had been spent in his capture, and now, if he were suffered to live and go again at large, he would renew his depredations, and be cunning enough not to suffer himself to be caught again. He urged, further, that his skin was of some value, and that, to make the most of him they could, it would not repay half the damage he had already done. His argument was ready, practical, to the point, and of much greater length than our limits will allow us to occupy in relating the story. The father looked with pride upon his son who became a distinguished jurist in his manhood. “Now, Daniel, it is your turn; I’ll hear what you have to say.” It was his first case. Daniel saw that the plea of his brother had sensibly affected his father, the judge; and as his large, brilliant, black eyes looked upon the soft, timid expression11of the animal, and he saw it tremble with fear in its narrow prison-house, his heart swelled with pity, and he urged, with eloquent words, that the captive might again go free. “God,” he said, “had made the woodchuck; he made him to live, to enjoy the bright sunlight, the pure air, the free fields and woods. God had not made him, or anything, in vain; the woodchuck had as much right to life as any other living thing.” “He was not a destructive animal, as the wolf and the fox were; he simply ate a few common vegetables, of which they had plenty, and could well spare a part; he destroyed nothing except the little food he needed to sustain his humble life; and that little food was as sweet to him, and as necessary to his existence, as was to them the food upon their mother’s table. “God furnished to them food; he gave them all they possessed; and would they not spare a little for the dumb creature, that really had as much right to his small share of God’s bounty as they themselves had to their portion?” “Yea, more, the animal had never violated the laws of his nature or the laws of God, as man often did, but strictly followed the simple, harmless instincts he had received from the hand of the Creator of all things. Created by God’s hand, he had a right—a right from God—to life, to food, to liberty; and they had no right to deprive him of either.” He alluded to the mute but earnest pleadings of the animal for that life, as sweet, as dear to him as their own was to them, and the just judgment they might expect if, in selfish cruelty and cold heartlessness, they took the life they could not restore—the life that God alone had given. During this appeal, the tears had started to the old man’s eyes, and were fast running down his sunburnt cheeks; every feeling of a father’s heart was stirred within him; he saw the future greatness of his son before his eyes; he felt that God had blessed him in his children, beyond the lot of most men. His pity and sympathy were awakened by the eloquent words of compassion, and the strong appeal for mercy; and, forgetting the judge in the man and father, he sprang from his chair (while Daniel was in the midst of his argument, without thinking he had already won his case), and, turning to his older son, dashing the tears from his eyes, exclaimed, “Ezekiel, Ezekiel, you let that woodchuck go!”—Boston Traveler.