EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 3 



There before me, at the end of the quiet spring 

 afternoon, two of the wildest and shyest of all of our 

 native animals lay asleep. Never before had I seen 

 a fox in all that country, nor even suspected that one 

 had a home within a scant mile of mine. As I watched 

 them sleeping, I felt somehow that the wildwood 

 had taken me into her confidence and was trusting 

 her children to my care; and I would no more have 

 harmed them, than I would my own. 



As I watched the cub curled up in a woolly ball, 

 I wanted to creep up and stroke his soft fur. Leaving 

 the hard path, I started to cover as silently as possi- 

 ble the fifty feet that lay between us. Before I had 

 gone far, a leaf rustled underfoot, and in a second the 

 cub was on his feet, wide awake, and staring down at 

 me. With one foot in the air, I waited and waited 

 until he settled down to sleep again. A minute 

 later the same thing happened once more, only to be 

 repeated at every step or so. It took me something 

 like half an hour to reach a point within twenty 

 feet of where he lay, and I looked straight into his 

 eyes each time that he stood up. 



No wild animal can tell a man from a tree by sight 

 alone if only he stands still. Suddenly, as the cub 

 sprang up, perhaps for the tenth time, there about 

 six feet to one side of him stood the old mother fox. 

 I had not heard a sound or seen a movement, but 

 there she was. I was so close that I dared not move 

 my head to look at the cub, but turned only my eyes. 

 When I looked back the mother fox was gone. With 

 no sudden movement that I could detect, there 



