Mrs. Brushtail dropped the chicken on the ground for the little foxes, and then she sprang upon a log and just lay there and watched them. Mr. Fox trotted off into the woods again.
"He's probably going after another hen," thought Doctor Rabbit, "or after Stubby Woodchuck or Chatty Red Squirrel or any of us he can catch." And Doctor Rabbit hoped all his little friends would be on the lookout.
While Mrs. Brushtail lay up on the log and looked on proudly, how the little foxes did pull at that dead chicken and growl!
"And so there are the growlers I heard in the thicket!" Doctor Rabbit thought to himself.
Those little foxes might have looked pretty to some people, they were so young and so playful and so funny; but they did not look pretty to Doctor Rabbit. Indeed they did not. They looked like four terrible monsters. Their little eyes snapped like the eyes of terrible little savages, and their tiny teeth, sharp as needles, pulled feathers and sank into the chicken.
It was certainly true that Mrs. Brushtail was teaching her very small children how to eat chicken, and as she lay on the log and watched them, she seemed perfectly satisfied with them.
After the little foxes had growled and pulled at the chicken for a good while, Brushtail was seen coming through the woods with something in his mouth. Then suddenly Doctor Rabbit became almost sick with fear. He thought for a second that Brushtail had caught Stubby Woodchuck, but it proved to be no one but a large and ugly old woodrat that had lately grown so cross and savage that all the little creatures of the Big Green Woods were afraid of him.
Doctor Rabbit was very glad indeed that it was that particular old woodrat, because he had really become dangerous.
Brushtail dropped the woodrat down before the little foxes, and how they did did begin pulling and biting him! Mrs. Brushtail up on the log smiled ever so broadly at this. But it was not a pleasing smile to Doctor Rabbit, hiding in the briar patch. I should say not! It was a terrible smile.
The next instant Yappy came tearing through the woods, right toward the thicket, and Doctor Rabbit had a moment of hope. But Mrs. Brushtail just uttered one quick, low growl, and every little fox scurried into the thicket. That time Doctor Rabbit had a good view of the inside of the thicket, and he saw what became of the foxes. They went into a hole under some rocks by a large papaw bush. "So that," said Doctor Rabbit to himself, "is where Mr. and Mrs. Brushtail and their little Brushies have their den."