Green Meadow Stories - Thornton W. Burgess (best novels for students txt) 📗

a glimpse of a gray form with broad wings, and in a perfect panic of fear Blacky began to fly as fast as he knew how for a thick spruce-tree not far away. He plunged in among the branches and hid in the thickest part he could find. With little shivers of fear running all over him, he peeked out and watched that big gray form. On broad wings it sailed over to that hollow stump. Two long legs with great curving claws reached down in, and a moment later that fat hen was disappearing over the tree tops. Blacky sighed with relief.

“It’s a lucky thing for me that robber, Mr. Goshawk, saw Reddy hide that fat hen,” muttered Blacky. “If he hadn’t, he might have caught me, for I didn’t see him at all.”

XLII All Is Well That Ends Well

When things go wrong, just patient be
Until the end you plainly see.
For often things that seem all bad
Will end by making all hands glad.

Bowser the Hound

Reddy Fox, trotting homeward, had nothing but bitterness in his heart, and nothing at all in his stomach. He was tired and hungry and bitterly disappointed. He was in a country with which he was not familiar, and so he did not know where to hunt, and he felt that he just must get something to eat. Do what he would, he couldn’t help thinking about that fat hen he had hidden and which had so mysteriously disappeared. The more he thought of it, the worse he felt. It was bad enough to be hungry and have no idea where the next meal was coming from, but it was many times worse to have had that meal and then lose it. To Reddy, everything was all wrong.

Now on his way home Ready had to pass several farms. Hunger made him bold, and at each farm he stole softly as near as possible to the farmyard, hoping that he might find more fat hens unguarded. Now it happened that that afternoon a farmer at one of these farms was preparing some chickens to be taken to market early the next morning. He was picking these chickens in a shed attached to the barn. He had several all picked when he was called to the house on an errand.

It happened that just after he had disappeared Reddy Fox came stealing around from behind the barn, and at once he smelled those chickens. Just imagine how Reddy felt when he peeped in that shed and saw those fine chickens just waiting for him. Two minutes later Reddy was racing back to the woods with one of them. This time there was no dog behind him. And in a little hollow Reddy ate the finest dinner he ever had had. You see there were no feathers to bother him on that chicken, for it had been picked. When the last bit had disappeared, Reddy once more started for home, and this time he was happy, for his stomach was full.

Long before Reddy got back to the Old Pasture Farmer Brown’s boy and Bowser the Hound had reached home. Such a fuss as everybody did make over Bowser. It seemed as if each one at Farmer Brown’s was trying to spoil Bowser. As for Bowser himself, he was the happiest dog in all the Great World.

Blacky the Crow got back to the Green Forest near Farmer Brown’s just before jolly, round Mr. Sun went to bed. Blacky had found plenty to eat and he had seen no more of fierce Mr. Goshawk. As Blacky settled himself on his roost he heard from the direction of Farmer Brown’s house a great voice. It was the voice of Bowser the Hound trying to express his joy in being home. Blacky chuckled contentedly. He, too, was happy, for it always makes one happy to have one’s plans succeed.

“All’s well that end’s well,” he chuckled, and closed his eyes sleepily.

Blacky never could have fooled old Granny Fox as he did Reddy. She is far too smart to be fooled even by so clever a scamp as Blacky. She is so smart that she deserves a book all her own, and so the next volume in this series will be Old Granny Fox.

Old Granny Fox 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