The Fox.
“Now and then the fox stopped to listen.” Page 131.
Once the smallest fox was really chased by a dog. The dog smelled his trail near a flock of chickens. He ran on with his nose to the ground till he saw the fox sitting under a tree with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. At the sound of the bark the fox looked back. Then off and away he ran lightly over the hills and through the fields. His fluffy tail floated in the wind.
Now and then the fox stopped to listen to the baying of the dog far behind him. Two or three times he whirled around, chasing his tail and capering. He knew that he could run the faster. He picked his way from stone to stone across a brook because he did not like to wet his feet. Then he ran up a tree that had fallen in a slant. He jumped from the end far over to a dead log and scampered across a rocky field. From the top of a hill he looked back and watched the dog trying to find the scent over the brook and around the slanting tree. When he was tired he hid in a hole.
When autumn came the young foxes gathered on many a frosty night for a romp before going to their hunting. They galloped to and fro, jumping over one another and springing from log to log. It was almost the same as if they were puppies again, frisking before the old burrow. They wrestled and rolled and whirled around after their tails. Then away to their silent hunting!
When the snow fell and the cold winds blew life was harder for the foxes. Through the day generally they slept in their dens, with their tails curled over their noses and fore-paws. Out they crept at sundown to hunt for a rabbit or unwary squirrel, to trap a partridge, or snatch a squeaking mouse at the edge of a stone.
Many a night some young fox went home hungry. Often he lay in the snow hour after hour till his legs were stiff, while he waited for a rabbit that stayed safe in its hole. More than once he made a dive into the snow after a partridge, only to see the bird flutter up before his very nose and fly into a tree. Very likely, as he sat looking hungrily up to the branches, he wished that he could climb trees. Undoubtedly the partridges and the squirrels did not wish any such thing.
Before spring came at last the foxes were hungry enough to eat anything. Indeed one day in early March, while the smallest one was roaming through the woods, he happened to spy a garter-snake coiled on a rock in the sunshine. He jumped for it and gulped it down in a hurry. The next day he caught a turtle and a frog. The frog was so stiff and sluggish from its winter’s sleep that it could not hop at all.
By that time it seemed that spring was really at hand. As the foxes never ate grass or leaves they did not care about the fresh green plants and buds through the woods. Nevertheless they knew very well that rabbits liked roots, and squirrels nibbled twigs, and field-mice were hungry for the sprouting seeds. When these small animals came out to eat, the foxes could hunt them more easily than in winter.
Once more the soft winds blew among the branches and the leaves flickered in the sunlight. The birds were singing overhead in the tree-tops. And here and there in the hidden thickets new broods of little red foxes were frisking together at the mouths of the burrows.