Two or three miles back from almost all New England towns are certain
old pastures and clearings, long since run wild, in which the young
foxes love to meet and play on moonlight nights, much as rabbits do,
though in a less harum-scarum way. When well fed, and therefore in no
hurry to hunt, the heart of a young fox turns naturally to such a
spot, and to fun and capers. The playground may easily be found by
following the tracks after the first snowfall. (The knowledge will not
profit you probably till next season; but it is worth finding and
remembering.) If one goes to the place on some still, bright night in
autumn, and hides on the edge of the open, he stands a good chance of
seeing two or three foxes playing there. Only he must himself be still
as the night; else, should twenty foxes come that way, he will never
see one.
It is always a pretty scene, the quiet opening in the woods flecked
with soft gray shadows in the moonlight, the dark sentinel evergreens
keeping silent watch about the place, the wild little creatures
playing about among the junipers, flitting through light and shadow,
jumping over each other and tumbling about in mimic warfare, all
unconscious of a spectator as the foxes that played there before the
white man came, and before the Indians.
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