“Now I am going to eat you,” it said, “as I ate all the others. I am hungry, very hungry,” and it prodded me about with its nose and rolled me over.
At last with a little squeal it drove its big yellow teeth into me behind. Oh! how they hurt! I was near the rat-hole. I rushed at it, scrabbling and wriggling. The big rabbit pounced on me with its fore-feet, trying to hold me, but too late, for I was through, leaving some of my fur behind me. I ran, how I ran! without stopping, till at length I found my mother in the rough pasture by the wood and told her everything.
“Ah!” she said, “that’s what comes of greediness and of trying to be too clever. Now, perhaps, you will learn to stop at home.”
So I did for a long while.
The summer went by without anything particular happening, except that my brother with the lame foot was eaten by the mother fox. That great red beast was always prowling about, and at night surprised us in a field near the wood where we were feeding on some beautiful turnips. The rest of us got away, but my brother being lame, was not quick enough. The fox caught him, and I heard her sharp white teeth crunch into his bones. The sound made me quite sick, and my mother was very sad afterwards. She complained to my father of the cruelty of foxes, but he, who, as I have said, was a philosopher, answered her almost in her own words.
“Foxes must live, and this one has young to feed, and therefore is always hungry. There are three of them in a hole at the top of the wood,” he remarked. “Also our son was lame and would certainly have been caught when the hunting begins.”
“What’s the hunting?” I asked.
“Never mind,” said my father sharply. “No doubt you’ll find out in time, that is if you live through the shooting.”
“What’s the shooting?” I began, but my father cuffed me over the head and I was silent.