She was walking on her hind legs, carefully holding her magnificent tail away from the dust and the cockleburrs. She may have believed in the re-incarnation theory, but it was evident that she did not care to become even a little burred. Upon her arm was an old Fox, with a scarred face, blind and helpless, as I soon perceived. He was bald in many places, had false teeth in both jaws, and his tail had only one new sprout at the end of it. He paid no attention whatever to me, and I quickly surmised that he had also lost the sense of hearing.
I knit my brows in deep thought, then instantly unravelled them. The express thundered around the bend, and, in a flash, I understood. He was some poor old foxy grandpa, totally deaf, whom Hoop-La had found walking upon the railroad track and was taking home. It gave me a new insight into her kind heart, and I was sure that if I could only make her understand how Uncle Antonio and I felt about Jocko, she would release him, even though the children wanted to play with him.
But to make her understand? Ah, measureless, impassable gulf that lies between us and our kindred of the wild!
Several days later I visited the den. I could hear Jocko flopping about on his chain in the far corner, and hear the little Foxes screaming with delight. I did not think Hoop-La was at home, and was about to crawl in and kidnap Jocko. Just then, as if reading my thought, she came out.
She looked at me disdainfully—contemptuously, I thought. Then she went back, returning almost immediately with an old, worn-out rubber, which she expressively dropped at my feet. I crept away in shame, fully understanding her point of view.
Eventually, the thing was solved, and in a strange manner. It came about in this way.
Uncle Antonio, like many foreign noblemen, carried with him a miniature cooking outfit and some imported ingredients. He had said nothing about these, being content to subsist entirely upon my humbler fare, but one day, when I was about to start for the village, he came to me.
“You goa da town?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Looka da here,” pleaded Uncle Antonio. “You bringa sixa da pork chop, two lar-rge can da tomat, one onion lika your head.”