Out on the grass between the heaps of hay Box sits majestically on his tail. He has accompanied the men working in the fields, and he feels himself one of them, especially taking into consideration the important nature of his sentry duty.
He has just been trying to facilitate the farmer’s ploughing by digging a deep hole in search of a mole. But the ground is too dry and the work on the whole too tedious—he doesn’t care about it any more! Then, far away out on the road he sees a man walking, and so barks at him for a time.
In this manner he is constantly useful!
At last he feels he would like a trot round.... Scarcely has he crossed the potato-field when two partridges come running towards him. Wow! he is upon them with a jump—and after them in the direction in which they shoot away on their stiff, short wings!
Then he catches sight of an animal emerging from the corn. It creeps along, its body close to the ground.... It smells, he notices; ha, cat ... cat!
Box has forgotten the partridges and races after puss. But it is difficult for him to make progress, for the corn is thick and is higher than the cat’s back. Only with extreme difficulty is he able to follow the scent.
Grey Puss for the time takes things easily.... She canters quietly away from the direction of the burial-mound. Several times she passes ditches and bunches of thistles where she could easily have lain in ambush and attacked the dog; but she knows Box well enough from old times, and does not take the pursuit very seriously.
For a time they play hide-and-seek; then the affair bores her, and she turns and makes a bee-line for home.
The children, not realizing the state of affairs, swarm out to meet her.
They see gliding towards them a daylight-coloured dog with big lumps of night stuck to its coat. Its legs move very quickly, and its tail whips and whistles like the wind. It comes with wide-open jaws, and tongue hanging out of its mouth. “Ha, ha, ha!” it gasps, as with half-shut eyes it sniffs eagerly through its big, split, padded snout.