One Of His Animal Stories

Now, Tudens, you sit on _this_ knee--and 'scuse It having no side-saddle on;--and, Jeems, You sit on _this_--and don't you wobble so And chug my old shins with your coppertoes;-- And, all the rest of you, range round someway,-- Ride on the rockers and hang to the arms Of our old-time splint-bottom carryall!-- Do anything but _squabble_ for a place, Or push or shove or scrouge, or breathe _out loud_, Or chew wet, or knead taffy in my beard!-- Do _any_thing almost--act _any_way,-- Only _keep still_, so I can hear myself Trying to tell you "just one story more!"

One winter afternoon my father, with A whistle to our dog, a shout to us-- His two boys--six and eight years old we were,-- Started off to the woods, a half a mile From home, where he was chopping wood. We raced, We slipped and slid; reaching, at last, the north Side of Tharp's corn-field.--There we struck what seemed To be a coon-track--so we all agreed: And father, who was not a hunter, to Our glad surprise, proposed we follow it. The snow was quite five inches deep; and we, Keen on the trail, were soon far in the woods. Our old dog, "Ring," ran nosing the fresh track With whimpering delight, far on ahead. After following the trail more than a mile To northward, through the thickest winter woods We boys had ever seen,--all suddenly He seemed to strike _another_ trail; and then Our joyful attention was drawn to Old "Ring"--leaping to this side, then to that, Of a big, hollow, old oak-tree, which had Been blown down by a storm some years before. There--all at once--out leapt a lean old fox From the black hollow of a big bent limb,-- Hey! how he scudded!--but with our old "Ring" Sharp after him--and father after "Ring"-- We after father, near as we could hold! And father noticed that the fox kept just About four feet ahead of "Ring"--just _that_-- No farther, and no nearer! Then he said:-- "There are young foxes in that tree back there,

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