The fox is another comedian whose cunning has been overemphasized ever since Æsop invented certain animal fables, but whose amusing side had not yet found a worthy chronicler. Young foxes play by the hour outside their den with a variety of games, mock fights and rough-and-tumble capers, which make the antics of a kitten almost dull by comparison. That they are glad little beasts, without fear and with only a saving measure of caution, is plain to anyone who has ever watched them with the understanding of sympathy. Unlike the bears, they keep the spirit of play to the end. A grown fox will chase his tail in sheer exuberance of animal spirits; or he will forget his mousing, even his hunger, in the pleasure of pestering a tortoise when he finds one of the awkward creatures loafing about the woods.
One summer day I watched a fox-and-woodchuck drama in which keen wits were pitted against dull wits, a drama to which only the genius of Uncle Remus could do justice. The time was late afternoon, the place a cleared hillside, the first actor an old woodchuck that ventured from his den to a clover field for a last sweet mouthful before he slept. On the hill above, a fox came out of the woods, leaped to the top of a stone wall, and stood looking keenly over the clover. Such was the pretty scene; from some filbert bushes behind a lower wall a solitary spectator watched it expectantly.
Eleemos the sly one, as Simmo calls the fox, does not lightly enter a cleared field by daylight, though he is often mousing along the edge of it just before dawn. I think he knew that this particular field had a den, and that he was planning to catch one of the young woodchucks. Hence his elevated station on the wall, with bushes bending over to shadow him, and the expectant look in his bright eyes. He gave a quick start as he caught a waving of grass, the motion of a grizzled head; then, having located his prize, he dropped back into the woods, ran down behind the wall, slipped over it under cover of a bush, crept flat on his belly to a rock, and peeked around it to measure his chance. Oh yes, he could catch that slow fellow yonder; surely, without half trying! Inch by inch he pushed clear of the rock, waited with feet under him till the chuck dropped out of sight to feed, then launched himself like a bolt.
Now a woodchuck is also cunning in his own way, far too cunning to be caught napping in the open. Like the beaver, he often sits up for a wary look all around; after which he drops as if to feed, but immediately bobs up a second time. A young chuck may be foolishly content with a single survey; but a veteran is apt to make at least two false starts at feeding, with the evident purpose of fooling any enemy that may be watching him.
So it befell that, just as the fox leaped from cover, the woodchuck’s head bobbed up over the clover. He saw the enemy instantly, and scuttled away for his burrow, his fat body shaking like a jelly bag as he ran. After him came the fox with swift jumps; into the hole dived the woodchuck, sending back a whistle of defiance; and the fox, grabbing at the vanishing tail, fetched up bump! against the earth with a shock that might have dislocated a less limber neck. He had the tail, firmly gripped between his teeth; and with a do-or-die expression he proceeded to drag his game out bodily,—a hard job, as anyone knows who has ever tested a woodchuck’s holding power.
Eleemos pulled steadily at first, turning his head first one side, then the other; but he might as well have tried to pull up a young hickory as to move that anchored creature with hind feet braced against opposite sides of the hole, and forepaws gripped about a rock or root. Then the fox began to tug, bracing his forefeet, jerking his body to the rear, like a terrier on a rope. In the midst of a mighty effort something gave way; the fox went over backward, turning end over end down the pitch of the hill. He picked himself up in a shamefaced way, sniffed a moment at the hole, and trotted off to the woods with a small piece of scrubby tail in his mouth.
Another time I was in an opening of the big woods at dusk of a winter day when a red fox appeared, carrying a rabbit. Evidently he had eaten as much as he wanted of the sweet meat, and was seeking a place to bury the remainder against a time of need. How cautious he was! How mindful of hungry noses that would be questing the woods before daybreak! He went hither and yon in a most aimless way, apparently; but one who watched him might know that he was leaving a merry tangle of tracks for any nose that should attempt to follow them. After hesitating over many spots he dropped the rabbit beside a rock, threw some snow over it, and went away with such confidence that he never once turned round. As he disappeared in the dusky woods the top of a stub under which he passed seemed to move, to bend forward as if alive. And it was alive; for a horned owl was sitting up there on his watchtower, making himself so inconspicuous that no one noticed him. No sooner was the fox gone than the owl swooped to the cache, drove his claws into it, and glided away like a shadow, taking the rabbit with him.
Such little comedies are not uncommon; they go on at all hours, in all unspoiled places, the only uncommon thing being that now and then some man is quiet or lucky enough to see them. The few squirrels, bears, foxes and other creatures which I have pictured are typical of all natural birds and beasts; gladness and comedy prevail among them until some sportsman appears with his needless killing, or a scientist invents an absurd theory of natural struggle to account for unnatural human depravity, or a literary artist with imaginative eye creates a world-embracing tragedy out of a passing incident, like this, for example: