"ThorntonWBurgess-OldGrannyFox" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burgess Thornton W)

OLD GRANNY FOX

BY THORNTON W. BURGESS



CHAPTER I: Reddy Fox Brings Granny News

Pray who is there who would refuse
To bearer be of happy news?
- Old Granny Fox.

Snow covered the Green Meadows and the Green Forest, and ice bound
the Smiling Pool and the Laughing Brook. Reddy and Granny Fox were
hungry most of the time. It was not easy to find enough to eat these
days, and so they spent nearly every minute they were awake in hunting.
Sometimes they hunted together, but usually one went one way, and
the other went another way so as to have a greater chance of finding
something. If either found enough for two, the one finding it took
the food back to their home if it could be carried. If not, the
other was told where to find it.

For several days they had had very little indeed to eat, and they were
so hungry that they were willing to take almost any chance to get a
good meal. For two nights they had visited Farmer Brown's henhouse,
hoping that they would be able to find a way inside. But the biddies
had been securely locked up, and try as they would, they couldn't
find a way in.

"It's of no use," said Granny, as they started back home after the
second try, "to hope to get one of those hens at night. If we are
going to get any at all, we will have to do it in broad daylight.
It can be done, for I have done it before, but I don't like the idea.
We are likely to be seen, and that means that Bowser the Hound will
be set to hunting us."

"Pooh!" exclaimed Reddy. "What of it? It's easy enough to fool him."

"You think so, do you?" snapped Granny. "I never yet saw a young Fox
who didn't think he knew all there is to know, and you're just like
the rest. When you've lived as long as I have you will have learned
not to be quite so sure of your own opinions. I grant you that when
there is no snow on the ground, any Fox with a reasonable amount of
Fox sense in his head can fool Bowser, but with snow everywhere it is
a very different matter. If Bowser once takes it into his head to
follow your trail these days, you will have to be smarter than I think
you are to fool him. The only way you will be able to get away from
him will be by going into a hole in the ground, and when you do that
you will have given away a secret that will mean we will never have any
peace at all. We will never know when Farmer Brown's boy will take it