Clara Dillingham Pierson Nature Reader Part I

AMONG THE NIGHT PEOPLE her,” he said, “I could have caught one of the others easily enough.”

He sneaked around in the shadows to see if the noise made by the turkeys had awakened the farmer or Collie.

The farmhouse was still and dark. Collie was not at home. “I will look at the Hen-house,” said the Red Fox. He walked slowly and carefully to the Hen-house.

The big door was closed and bolted. He walked all around and into the poultry yard. There was a small opening through which the fowls could pass in and out.

The Red Fox managed to crawl though, but it was not easy. It squeezed his body and crushed his fur. He had to push very hard with his hind feet to get through at all.

When he was inside it took him some time to get his breath. “That’s the tightest place I ever was in,” said he softly, “but I always could crawl through a very small hole.”

He found the fowls all roosting too high for him.

Perhaps if the Hen-house had been larger, he might have leaped and caught one, but there was not room for one of his finest springs. He went to the nests and found many eggs there. These he broke and ate. They ran down in yellow streams from the corners of his mouth and made his long fur very sticky. You can just imagine how hard it would be to eat raw eggs from the shell with only your paws in which to hold them.

One egg was light and slippery. He bit hard to break that one, and when it broke it was hollow. Not a drop of anything to eat in it, and then it cut his lip a little, too, so that he could not eat more without its hurting. He jumped and said something when he was cut. The Shanghai Cock, who was awakened by the noise, said that he exclaimed, “Brambles and traps!” but it may not 312