Frisky Fox had never seen wild grapes before, though he had often passed the vines when the fruit was green. Now his keen little nose told him enough to make him eager for a taste.
But the fruit hung just too high. Leaping into the air, he occasionally got a nibble from the low-hanging bunches. But these only served to whet his appetite for more.
To add to his discontent, Fairy the Flying Squirrel suddenly sailed down from a tree-top, alighting on the very top of the grapevine canopy. And there she perched saucily and munched and sucked at grape after grape before his very eyes.
This was too much for Frisky. Around and around the vines he circled, screwing up his courage for a leap.
He finally discovered a place where the vine hugged a slanting tree trunk, and he climbed as far as he could.
The next instant Fairy had sailed back to her branch as easily as if she had been laughing at him. But Frisky didn’t mind that. It would take just a stretch of his neck and his jaws would close on a great cluster of the fragrant fruit.
If young Frisky Fox had only been content with that one taste, all might have been well. But just beyond was a larger bunch. Frisky gave a leap, landing on his tip-toes on crossed vines. But the vines parted beneath his weight, and down he plunged—almost to the ground, but not quite. Not far enough for a foot-hold.
And there he hung, head downward, hind legs tangled in the vines, unable to better his position!
My, how he writhed and squirmed, and bit at the vine that shackled him! But to no avail! He was a prisoner, just as surely as if he had been tied with a rope. Little his brains availed him now.
If any one had asked young Frisky Fox, as he hung head downward from that grapevine, what he thought of the situation, he would have said it couldn’t be worse.