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

before starting on another hunt. They had neither the strength nor the courage to search any longer then. Wading through snow is very hard work at best and very tiresome, but when your stomach has been empty for so long that you almost begin to wonder what food tastes like, it becomes harder work still. You see, it is food that makes strength, and lack of food takes away strength.

This was why Granny and Reddy Fox just had to rest. Hungry as they were, they had to give up for awhile. Reddy flung himself down, and if ever there was a discouraged young Fox he was that one. “I wish I were dead,” he moaned.

“Tut, tut, tut!” said Granny Fox sharply. “That’s no way for a young Fox to talk! I’m ashamed of you. I am indeed.” Then she added more kindly: “I know just how you feel. Just try to forget your empty stomach and rest awhile. We have had a tiresome, disappointing, discouraging night, but when you are rested things will not look quite so bad. You know the old saying:

‘Never a road so long is there
But it reaches a turn at last;
Never a cloud that gathers swift
But disappears as fast.’

You think you couldn’t possibly feel any worse than you do right now, but you could. Many a time I have had to go hungry longer than this. After we have rested awhile we will go over to the Old Pasture. Perhaps we will have better luck there.”

So Reddy tried to forget the emptiness of his stomach and actually had a nap, for he was very, very tired. When he awoke he felt better.

“Well, Granny,” said he, “let’s start for the Old Pasture. The snow has crusted over, and we won’t find it such hard going as it was last night.”

Granny arose and followed Reddy out to the doorstep. She walked stiffly. The truth is, she ached in every one of her old bones. At least, that is the way it seemed to her. She looked towards the Old Pasture. It seemed very far away. She sighed wearily. “I don’t believe I’ll go, Reddy,” said she. “You run along and luck go with you.”

Reddy turned and stared at Granny suspiciously. You know his is a very suspicious nature. Could it be that Granny had some secret plan of her own to get a meal and wanted to get rid of him?

“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded roughly. “It was you who proposed going over to the Old Pasture.”

Granny smiled. It was a sad sort of smile. She is wonderfully sharp and smart, is Granny Fox, and she knew what was in Reddy’s mind as well as if he had told her.

“Old bones don’t rest and recover as quickly as young bones, and I just don’t feel equal to going over there now,” said she. “The truth is, Reddy, I am growing old. I am going to stay right here and rest. Perhaps then I’ll feel able to go hunting tonight. You trot along now, and if you get more than a stomachful, just remember old Granny and bring her a bite.”

There was something in the way Granny spoke that told Reddy she was speaking the truth. It was the very first time she ever had admitted that she was growing old and was no longer the equal of any Fox. Never before had he noticed how gray she had grown. Reddy felt a feeling of shame creep over him⁠—shame that he had suspected Granny of playing a sharp trick. And this little feeling of shame was followed instantly by a splendid thought. He would go out and find food of some kind, and he would bring it straight back to Granny. He had been taken care of by Granny when he was little, and now he would repay Granny for all she had done for him by taking care of her in her old age.

“Go back in the house and lie down, Granny,” said he kindly. “I am going to get something, and whatever it may be you shall have your share.” With this he trotted off towards the Old Pasture and somehow he didn’t mind the ache in his stomach as he had before.

XIV Three Vain and Foolish Wishes

There’s nothing so foolishly silly and vain
As to wish for a thing you can never attain.

Old Granny Fox

We all know that, yet most of us are just foolish enough to make such a wish now and then. I guess you have done it. I know I have. Peter Rabbit has done it often and then laughed at himself afterwards. I suspect that even shrewd, clever old Granny Fox has been guilty of it more than once. So it is not surprising that Reddy Fox, terribly hungry as he was, should do a little foolish wishing.

When he left home to go to the Old Pasture, in the hope that he would be able to find something to eat there, he started off bravely. It was cold, very cold indeed, but his fur coat kept him warm as long as he was moving. The Green Meadows were glistening white with snow. All the world, at least all that part of it with which Reddy was acquainted, was white. It was beautiful, very beautiful, as millions of sparkles flashed in the sun. But Reddy had no thought for beauty; the only thought he had room for was to get something to put in the empty stomachs of himself and Granny Fox.

Jack Frost had hardened the snow so that Reddy no longer had to wade through it. He could run on the crust now without breaking through. This made it much easier, so he trotted along swiftly. He had intended to go straight to the Old Pasture, but there suddenly popped into his head a memory of the shelter down in a far corner of the Old Orchard which Farmer Brown’s boy had built