"There are worse-looking things than woodchucks. Still, of course, there's a medium. Possibly the woodchuck carries neglect to excess."
The discussion rested there. I do not know whether Jonathan expressed any of these ideas to Hiram, but the grooming process appeared to be temporarily suspended. Then one day my turn came. It was dusk, and I was sitting on an old log at the back of the orchard, looking out over the little swamp, all a-twinkle with fireflies. Jonathan had been up the lane, prowling about, as he often does at nightfall, "to take a look at the farm." I heard his step in the lane, and he jumped over the bars at the far end of the orchard. There was a pause, then a vehement exclamation—too vehement to print. Jonathan's remarks do not usually need editing, and I listened to these in the dusk in some degree of wonder, if not of positive enjoyment.
Finally I called out, "What's the matter?"
"Oh! You there?" He strode over. "Matter! Come and see what that fool hobo did."
"You called him something besides that a moment ago," I remarked.
"I hope so. Whatever I called him, he's it. Come over."
He led me to the orchard edge, and there in the half light I saw a line of stubs and a pile of brush.
"Not your quince bushes!" I gasped.
"Just that," he said, grimly, and then burst into further unprintable phrases descriptive of the city-bred loafer. "If I ever give work to a hobo again, I'll be—"
"Sh-h-h," I said; and I could not forbear adding, "Now you know how I have felt about those huckleberry bushes and birches and things, only I hadn't the language to express it."