"But how?" I asked. Tom said he would show me. He brought a two-bushel basket and went out into the fields. In the stone-heaps, and beside the old logs and stumps, there were dozens of deserted mouse-nests, each a wad of fine dry grass as large as a quart box. These were gathered up, and filled the great basket.
"There," said he, triumphantly, "don't them smell mousey?"
They did, certainly; they savored as strongly of mice as Tom's question of bad grammar.
"And don't foxes catch mice?" demanded Tom, confidently.
"Yes, but I don't see how that's going to catch the fox," I said.
"Well, look here, then, I'll show ye," said he. "Play you's the fox; and play 't was night, and you was prowling around the fields. Go off now out there by that stump."
Full of wonder and curiosity, I retired to the stump. Tom, meantime, turned out the mass of nests, and with it completely covered himself. The pile now resembled an enormous mouse-nest, or rather a small hay-cock. Pretty soon I heard a low, high-keyed, squeaking noise, accompanied by a slight rustle inside the nest. Evidently there were mice in it; and, feeling my character as fox at stake, I at once trotted forward, then crept up, and, as the rustling and squeaking continued, made a pounce into the grass—as I had heard it said that foxes did when mousing. Instantly two spry brown hands from out the nest clutched me with a most vengeful grip. As a fox, I struggled tremendously. But Tom overcame me forthwith, choked me nearly black in the face, then, in dumb show, knocked my head with a stone.
"D'ye see, now!" he demanded.
I saw.
"But a fox would bite you," I objected.