If you would know how well an animal can wait, scare Dr. Wood Chuck into his office, then sit down outside and wait for him to come out. It would be a rare and interesting thing for you to do. No one has ever done it yet, I believe! Establish a world’s record for keeping still! But you should scare him in at the beginning of your summer vacation so as to be sure you have all the waiting-time the state allows: for you may have to leave the hole in September and go back to school. When the doctor wrote the prescription for this medicine, “No moving for an hour,” he was giving you a very small, a homeopathic dose of patience, as you can see; for _an hour_ at a time, every wood-watcher knows, will often be only a waste of time, unless followed immediately by another hour of the same. On the road to the village one day, I passed a fox-hunter sitting atop an old stump. It was about seven o’clock in the morning. “Hello, Will!” I called, “been out all night?” “No, got here ’bout an hour ago,” he replied. I drove on and, returning near noon, found Will still atop the stump. “Had a shot yet?” I called. “No, the dogs brought him down ’tother side the brook, and carried him over to the Shanty field.” About four o’clock that afternoon I was hurrying down to the station, and there was Will atop that same stump. “Got him yet?” I called. “No, dogs are fetching him over the Quarries now”--and I was out of hearing. It was growing dark when I returned; but there was Will Hall atop the stump. I drew up in the road. “Grown fast to that stump, Will?” I called. “Want me to try to pull you off?” “No, not yet,” he replied, jacking himself painfully to his feet. “Chillin’ up some, ain’t it?” he added shaking himself. “Might’s well go home, I guess”--when from the direction of Young’s Meadows came the eager voice of his dogs; and, waving me on, he got quickly back atop the stump, his gun ready across his knees. I was nearly home when, through the muffle of the darkening woods, I heard the quick _bang! bang!_ of Will’s gun. Yes, he got him, a fine red fox. And speaking to me about it one day, he said,-- “There’s a lot more to sittin’ still than most folks thinks. The trouble is, most folks in the woods can’t stand the monopoly of it.” Will’s English needs touching up in spots; but he can show the professors a great many things about the ways of the woods. And now what does the doctor mean by “No dreaming or thumb-twiddling” in the woods? Just this: that not only must you be silent and motionless for hours at a time, but you must also be alert--watchful, keen, ready to take a hint, to question, guess, and interpret. The fields and woods are not full of life, but full only of the sounds, shadows, and signs of life.