Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier

by Frances Trego Montgomery

This alarm made the girls jump up and run from their table of goodies in a panic.

The lad who had thrown the water thought the other boy was merely fooling when he peered into the bushes and said he saw a white porcupine and fled.

Now was Zip's chance. Not waiting for them to get out of sight, he boldly rushed out and helped himself to the biggest piece of chicken he saw and gulped it down in his haste to get another piece and to steal some cake before the children should recover from their fright and return.

As they ran, one little girl turned around to see if the porcupine was chasing them. What she saw was some animal eating up their goodies, and she began to cry, for she was terribly hungry and had been thinking of all the good things they had to eat when lo! it was snatched out of their mouths, one might say, for their fright had come so suddenly.

One of the larger boys stopped running and looked back, and as he had once seen a porcupine, he knew this animal now eating their luncheon had too long legs and his nose was too thin to be a porcupine. Having gotten over his first panic, and being very hungry, his courage began to come back, and he called,

"Here, let's stop running away and go back and kill that animal, whatever it is! It won't eat us. It is too small!"

So like frightened sheep, when their leader stopped, the children all halted. "Get long sticks," he commanded, "and we'll drive him away."

This was easily done, for there were lots of long, strong sticks about, and each child got one. Armed with these, they came running back as bravely as they had cowardly run away, all howling like Comanche Indians on the warpath.

Seeing this, Zip grabbed a leg of chicken in his mouth and, running to the river, jumped in and swam to the opposite shore, where he soon disappeared in the thick underbrush.