On a farm among the hills of New Hampshire, in the United States, there
once lived a boy whose name was Daniel Webster. He was a tiny fellow
for one of his age. His hair was jet black, and his eyes were so dark
and wonderful that nobody who once saw them could ever forget them. He
was not strong enough to help much on the farm; and so he spent much
of his time in playing in the woods and fields. He loved the trees and
flowers and the harmless wild creatures that made their homes among
them.
But he did not play all the time. Long before he was old enough to go
to school, he learned to read; and he read so well that everybody liked
to hear him. The neighbors, when driving past his father’s house, would
stop their horses and call for the boy to come out and read to them.
It happened one summer that a woodchuck made its burrow in the side of
a hill near Mr. Webster’s house. On warm, dark nights it would come
down into the garden and eat the tender leaves of the cabbages and
other plants that were growing there. Nobody knew how much harm it
might do in the end. Daniel and his elder brother Ezekiel made up their
minds to catch the little thief. They tried this thing and that, but
for a long time he was too cunning for them. Then they built a strong
trap where the woodchuck would be sure to walk into it; and the next
morning, there he was.
“We have him at last!” cried Ezekiel. “Now, Mr. Woodchuck, you’ve done
mischief enough, and I’m going to kill you.” But Daniel pitied the
little animal. “No, don’t hurt him,” he said. “Let us carry him over
the hills, far into the woods, and let him go.” Ezekiel, however, would
not agree to this. His heart was not so tender as his little brother’s.
He was bent on killing the woodchuck, and laughed at the thought of
letting it go.
“Let us ask father about it,” said Daniel.
“All right,” said Ezekiel; “I know what he will decide.”
They carried the trap, with the woodchuck in it, to their father, and
asked what they should do.
“Well, boys,” said Mr. Webster, “we shall settle the question in this
way. We shall hold a court here. I shall be the judge, and you shall
be the lawyers. You shall each plead your case, for or against the
prisoner, and I shall decide what his punishment shall be.”
Ezekiel, as the prosecutor, made the first speech. He told about the
mischief that had been done. He showed that all woodchucks are bad and
cannot be trusted. He spoke of the time and labor that had been spent
in trying to catch the thief, and declared that if they should now set
him free he would be a worse thief than before.
“A woodchuck’s skin,” he said, “may perhaps be sold for ten cents.
Small as that sum is, it will go a little way towards paying for the
cabbages he has eaten. But, if we set him free, how shall we ever
recover even a penny of what we have lost? Clearly, he is of more value
dead than alive, and therefore he ought to be put out of the way at
once.”
Ezekiel’s speech was a good one, and it pleased Mr. Webster very much.
What he said was true and to the point, and it would be hard for Daniel
to make any answer to it.
Daniel began by pleading for the poor animal’s life. He looked up into
his father’s face, and said:--
“God made the woodchuck. He made him to live in the bright sunlight and
the pure air. He made him to enjoy the free fields and the green woods.
The woodchuck has a right to his life, for God gave it to him.
“God gives us our food. He gives us all that we have. And shall we
refuse to share a little of it with this poor dumb creature who has as
much right to God’s gifts as we have?
“The woodchuck is not a fierce animal like the wolf or the fox. He
lives in quiet and peace. A hole in the side of a hill, and a little
food, is all he wants. He has harmed nothing but a few plants, which he
ate to keep himself alive. He has a right to life, to food, to liberty;
and we have no right to say he shall not have them.
“Look at his soft, pleading eyes. See him tremble with fear. He cannot
speak for himself, and this is the only way in which he can plead for
the life that is so sweet to him. Shall we be so cruel as to kill him?
Shall we be so selfish as to take from him the life that God gave him?”
The father’s eyes were filled with tears as he listened. His heart was
stirred. He did not wait for Daniel to finish his speech, but sprang
to his feet, and as he wiped the tears from his eyes, he cried out,
“Ezekiel, let the woodchuck go!”
--SELECTED.