Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

 causes me to jump. It is a piercing sound meeting to go thru one, “like a knife.” Sounds like scraping of steel many times magnified(HT)(HT)My first thought is a bird & I attribute it to sheitpoke. Hear it several times. I get up and advance stealthily in its direction. As I near a rail fence a bird flies up. For a moment I imagine it is the cause, start my eye unconsciously glances downward. There standing, tense and + “frozen” was a woodchuck. Even as I gazed he uttered his shrill cry startling me so that I jumped. All his strength