For Mr. Fox thought, and so did every one else in the woods, that he was the very smartest and nattiest fellow around until Tim Coon came along with those red-and-green plaid trousers.
Mr. Fox at first did not bother much about the trousers, for he felt sure that in a short time he could persuade Tim Coon to part with them, but here he was mistaken, as time proved.
Mr. Fox had called on Tim every day. He had carried the fattest hen or duck, and even two fat chickens, and each time he hinted that he might part with each or any of them if he were offered the right thing.
But Tim Coon was well supplied with the season’s good things to eat and would not offer anything worth having.
And that was the reason that Mr. Fox sat on his steps one morning in deep thought while he smoked his old corncob pipe.
While he was thinking his eyes happened to alight upon a piece of paper on which there was some printing, and then he saw the word WOOL in big letters.
“Wool?” thought Mr. Fox; “that is what those red-and-green trousers are; all wool, Tim Coon says.”
Mr. Fox got up from the steps and picked up the paper. He began to read, and as he read his eyes grew big. The more he read the bigger they grew, and at last he became so interested he dropped his pipe from his mouth without noticing it.
Mr. Fox read all the printing. Then he crumpled up the paper and threw it into the bushes.
“If he only would get them soiled,” he said, “the rest would be easy; he would be sure to ask my advice.