When called
to come down he is afraid, and makes a great to-do about it. Another
has been crouching for five minutes behind a tuft of grass, watching
like a cat at a rat-hole for some one to come by and be pounced upon.
Another is worrying something on the ground, a cricket perhaps, or a
doodle-bug; and the fourth never ceases to worry the patient old
mother, till she moves away and lies down by herself in the shadow of
a ground cedar.
As the afternoon wears away, and long shadows come creeping up the
hillside, the mother rises suddenly and goes back to the den; the
little ones stop their play, and gather about her. You strain your
ears for the slightest sound, but hear nothing; yet there she is,
plainly talking to them; and they are listening. She turns her head,
and the cubs scamper into the den's mouth. A moment she stands
listening, looking; while just within the dark entrance you get
glimpses of four pointed black noses, and a cluster of bright little
eyes, wide open for a last look. Then she trots away, planning her
hunt, till she disappears down by the brook. When she is gone, eyes
and noses draw back; only a dark silent hole in the bank is left. You
will not see them again--not unless you stay to watch by moonlight
till mother-fox comes back, with a fringe of field-mice hanging from
her lips, or a young turkey thrown across her shoulders.
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