THE WISEST ONE

Almost the first thing that the smallest baby fox remembered was being carried in his mother’s mouth from one den to another. His woolly little red body hung limp between her long white teeth. That was the safest way; for if he had held stiff or wriggled she might have closed her jaws tighter and pinched him.

It was very early in the morning, and the rising sun was just lighting up the tops of the trees. The birds were singing their gayest May songs. Here and there dewdrops sparkled, where the level sunbeams glinted across the leaves. Under a bush a rabbit sat up very still, and stared with round, frightened eyes at the mother fox.

The mother fox did not see the rabbit. She stepped along swiftly. Her slender paws hardly rustled a leaf or snapped a twig. She looked like a graceful red dog, with pointed ears and yellow eyes and beautiful plumy tail. This plumy tail seemed to float out in the air behind her, as if she were blowing lightly before the wind.

When she reached the new den she did not stop an instant at the front door. The freshly dug earth was scattered around there in plain sight. In digging this new burrow she and the father fox had left the dirt there on purpose, to make their enemies think that this hole was the real entrance to the den. A few feet underground they had closed the tunnel with a heap of earth. At the other end they had made a new opening hidden behind gray rocks in a thicket.

To this secret door the mother fox carried the baby, and set him down on his four thick legs. He looked like a little red lamb with yellow eyes. Into the hole he scrambled, and crept through the tunnel to the dark den at the end. On the nest of leaves inside he found his four brothers and sisters snuggling together. The old mother had carried them there one by one.

The day before, when a big dog came nosing about the old den, the father fox led him away through the woods. He could run the faster, and so he kept on, with the dog chasing him, till the dog was tired out. Then he and the mother hurried to dig this new den and move the babies before the dog came back to the old place again.

In going from one den to the other the old foxes were careful not to walk in a straight path. If they did that of course the dog could follow them by smelling their trail. They took a roundabout path every time. They trotted around a swampy meadow and crossed a brook by stepping from stone to stone. The wet ground hid the scent of their paws.

This journey to the new den was the first time that the young foxes had been outdoors. As they were carried by the neck they could not twist their heads around to see very much. But still, they must have enjoyed the light and the fresh air. They did not want to keep on staying all the time in the dark den. So early one morning they came scrambling out after their mother.

The smallest baby fox crawled out last of all. For a moment he stood very quiet on all four paws. Then he sat down and cocked his little head on one side while he looked around. The old father was lying down in the sunlight just outside the thicket. Two of the babies trotted over to him and began to play with his tail. Two others climbed upon the mother’s back and pushed each other off. There they wrestled, rolling over and over in each other’s paws.

The smallest baby wanted to make the others pay him some attention. He lifted his sharp little black nose and opened his mouth and began to bark—bow-wow-wow, bow-wow-wow—till the others stopped playing. They came running over to ask what was the matter. He told them something in the fox language by rubbing his cool wet nose against theirs. Then they all five trotted about and explored the thicket by smelling of everything within reach.

They poked their noses into the grass and against the trees and bushes and over every stick and stone and leaf on the ground. To their keen nostrils everything had a different smell. When the smallest baby smelled a stick he could tell which little brother or sister had been smelling it just before him.

As the sun rose higher and the air grew warmer the little fellows sat down and rested, with their tongues lolling out of their mouths. Like all foxes and wolves and dogs they perspired through the tongue and the soles of their feet. After a while the mother gave a low growl to say that it was time to go back into the den. In they scampered head first, and curled up for a nap, with their fluffy tails over their noses.

When the babies cut their teeth the mother stopped feeding them with milk. After that she and the father fox were kept busy hunting for food for the hungry young ones. Sometimes they hunted in the daytime as well as at night. Oftener, however, the old mother stayed near the den to keep guard when the little foxes came out to play every afternoon.

Such fun as the five little ones had together! They ran round and round, chasing their tails. One hid behind a tuft of grass and jumped out to scare the others. Another climbed upon a rock and then was afraid to slide down. One went rolling down a small hill while another capered beside him and pretended to snap at him.

Once the smallest baby saw a grasshopper whizz past. He saw where it was hiding under a leaf. He crouched down as low as he could and crept toward it. Without making a noise he crawled from bush to stone, from stone to tuft of weeds, till he was near enough to spring and catch it in his paws. All the others ran to see what he had caught. The mother came, too, from the place where she had been watching him. She was proud of him because he was learning to hunt while so young.

As evening came on and the shadows lengthened under the trees the mother fox sent the babies into the den and walked away to hunt for a supper. The smallest fox happened to be the last one in. He turned when just inside and poked his pointed nose out to watch her as she trotted away into the woods.

A few hours later, when they heard her low call at the mouth of the burrow, out they came tumbling. Sometimes she had a rabbit hanging in her mouth, with its long legs on one side and its long ears on the other. Sometimes she had a young turkey thrown over her shoulders, or a fringe of field-mice hanging by the tails from her lips. Once she brought a wood-chuck, and at another time a string of little chickens held by the necks.

The babies always ran and snatched for a piece. Then each trotted off alone to eat it. When they were not hungry they played with the food. They nibbled the bits, first tossing them into the air and then springing to catch them. They could not use their fore-paws so freely as animals like the cat. They growled and shook the mice to and fro in their mouths. Sometimes they snatched from one another and snapped and snarled crossly. Once the smallest fox had a fight. Every time he flew at his brother the other whisked his bushy tail in front of his face, and all the little one got was a mouthful of fur.

By and by the young foxes were taken out to learn to hunt for themselves. There was ever so much to learn because every different animal must be hunted in a different way. The main lesson was to keep their eyes open and their ears alert and their noses keen for smelling. They must be quick to jump and wise at all sorts of tricks.

They learned to catch chickens by hiding near the place where the flock was feeding. When a chicken strayed near enough quick as a flash out jumped the fox and caught it by the neck. They chased rabbits and pounced on busy squirrels. They hunted meadow-mice in the grass, and stole silently upon careless woodchucks.

The smallest baby caught a chipmunk in almost the same way as he had caught the grasshopper. He saw the little brown animal feeding near its hole. Very slowly and carefully the fox began to walk up to it. Every few moments the chipmunk sat up and looked around. When he did this the fox stood still, and so the chipmunk did not notice him. As soon as the chipmunk dropped down on all four feet and began to nibble again, the young hunter crept several steps closer. He held his tail pointing out straight behind. At last, with a rush and a jump, the fox had the chipmunk between his teeth.

All summer long there was plenty to eat in the woods. The five young foxes grew as strong and tall as their parents. They left the old home and scattered to dig new dens here and there in the woods and fields. They all knew how to take care of themselves.

Even as babies they had learned to hold still as a stone at any strange sound. If they heard it again they ran to the den as fast as they could scamper. More than once while they lay blinking comfortably in the sunlight they saw the old father fox spring up with his ears pricked forward and his eyes gleaming. With his tail erect, his fore-feet planted in front, and his hind-feet on the spring, he listened to the sound that had startled him. Perhaps it was the bark of a dog or the scream of a blue jay over a newcomer in the woods. It was always safer for grown foxes to run from an enemy than to try to fight, for they were swift-footed creatures.

The Fox.
“Now and then the fox stopped to listen.” Page 131.

Once the smallest fox was really chased by a dog. The dog smelled his trail near a flock of chickens. He ran on with his nose to the ground till he saw the fox sitting under a tree with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. At the sound of the bark the fox looked back. Then off and away he ran lightly over the hills and through the fields. His fluffy tail floated in the wind.

Now and then the fox stopped to listen to the baying of the dog far behind him. Two or three times he whirled around, chasing his tail and capering. He knew that he could run the faster. He picked his way from stone to stone across a brook because he did not like to wet his feet. Then he ran up a tree that had fallen in a slant. He jumped from the end far over to a dead log and scampered across a rocky field. From the top of a hill he looked back and watched the dog trying to find the scent over the brook and around the slanting tree. When he was tired he hid in a hole.

When autumn came the young foxes gathered on many a frosty night for a romp before going to their hunting. They galloped to and fro, jumping over one another and springing from log to log. It was almost the same as if they were puppies again, frisking before the old burrow. They wrestled and rolled and whirled around after their tails. Then away to their silent hunting!

When the snow fell and the cold winds blew life was harder for the foxes. Through the day generally they slept in their dens, with their tails curled over their noses and fore-paws. Out they crept at sundown to hunt for a rabbit or unwary squirrel, to trap a partridge, or snatch a squeaking mouse at the edge of a stone.

Many a night some young fox went home hungry. Often he lay in the snow hour after hour till his legs were stiff, while he waited for a rabbit that stayed safe in its hole. More than once he made a dive into the snow after a partridge, only to see the bird flutter up before his very nose and fly into a tree. Very likely, as he sat looking hungrily up to the branches, he wished that he could climb trees. Undoubtedly the partridges and the squirrels did not wish any such thing.

Before spring came at last the foxes were hungry enough to eat anything. Indeed one day in early March, while the smallest one was roaming through the woods, he happened to spy a garter-snake coiled on a rock in the sunshine. He jumped for it and gulped it down in a hurry. The next day he caught a turtle and a frog. The frog was so stiff and sluggish from its winter’s sleep that it could not hop at all.

By that time it seemed that spring was really at hand. As the foxes never ate grass or leaves they did not care about the fresh green plants and buds through the woods. Nevertheless they knew very well that rabbits liked roots, and squirrels nibbled twigs, and field-mice were hungry for the sprouting seeds. When these small animals came out to eat, the foxes could hunt them more easily than in winter.

Once more the soft winds blew among the branches and the leaves flickered in the sunlight. The birds were singing overhead in the tree-tops. And here and there in the hidden thickets new broods of little red foxes were frisking together at the mouths of the burrows.