She was no longer on familiar ground. The woods were dense, and she felt that she was running a long way from home.
But suddenly Red Fox stopped. They had come to what appeared a jagged and moss-grown rock. It was the side of an old pit that had been dug into the shoulder of the hill, and at any other time Virginia would have remembered it as the old quarry where once she had been taken by her brothers and sisters on a picnic. But now she saw that it concealed in reality a doorway. Moss-grown and dark, the door was hardly discoverable, but it opened easily enough when Red Fox applied his key. And standing there to greet Virginia and Tiger Kitty was a wonderful old fox, with spectacles and a frilled bonnet and the kindliest face in the world.
"This is my mother," said Red Fox; "she's the matron."
"Yes," the good old soul admitted, "I am Mother Fox, and this charitable home for the destitute of the field and forest is named after me."
Virginia was embarrassed, but only for a minute, for sweet old Mother Fox invited her into the parlor and then, after she had been offered the most delicious of cakes, and the creamiest of milk, and had eaten a refreshing supper, she was shown through the home.
Living there was every poor animal that Virginia had ever known. And they were all in such supreme comfort and having such a good time that she was sure she had never seen so many people so happy all at once, never in her whole life.
"Our only discontented inmate is Mr. Wolf," said the matronly Mrs. Fox. "Would you like to see him?"
She led the way down a long hall to where Mr. Wolf was seated in a little room of his own, gnawing and snapping at his nurses, who were none other than the hedgehog and the big snapping turtle.
"Two rather sharp people for nurses," Red Fox remarked, almost in apology; "but you see it takes some one with a good deal of character to handle him."
In a great room which was a dining-hall, with high tables for the big animals, and low ones for the little folk, she saw the animals that were privileged to be there eating the most tempting dishes. There was lettuce salad for the rabbits, and corn-bread for the field mice, and blackberry pudding for the whole partridge family, and persimmon jam for the 'possums, and even lily roots creamed and on toast for the poor old muskrats.