[!-- Marker --] LESSON XIV.
VEG' E TA BLES, plants.
DEP RE DA' TION, robbery; plunder.
CAP TUR' ING, catching.
TRES' PASS ER, transgressor.
AP PEAL' ED, referred.
COUN' SEL, lawyer; advocate.
AR' GU MENT, plea; reason.
URG' ING, enforcing; advocating.
MIS' CHIEV OUS, hurtful; injurious.
PRAC' TI CAL, pertaining to practice.
DIS TIN' GUISH ED, celebrated.
JU' RIST, one versed in law.
AF FECT' ED, moved; impressed.
FUR' NISH ED, supplied.
VI' O LA TED, broken; transgressed.
DE PRIVE', rob; hinder.
AL LUD' ED, referred; adverted.
RE STORE', give back.
WEBSTER AND THE WOODCHUCK.
BOSTON TRAVELER.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. "Well, my boys," said the old gentleman, "I will be the judge. There is the prisoner, (pointing to the wood-chuck,) and you shall be the counsel, and plead the case for and against his life and liberty."
4. 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.
5. 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.