The Springfield Fox 



up within a few months. It must have como 

 from a hole, and yet there was none to be seen. 

 It is well known that a really cute fox, on dig- 

 ging a new den, brings all the earth out at the 

 first hole made, but carries on a tunnel into 

 some distant thicket. Then closing up for good 

 the first made and too well-marked door, uses 

 only the entrance hidden in the thicket. 



So after a little search at the other side of a 

 knoll, I found the real entry and good proof 

 that there was a nest of little foxes inside. 



Rising above the brush on the hillside was a 

 great hollow basswood. It leaned a good deal 

 and had a large hole at the bottom, and a smaller 

 one at top. 



We boys had often used this tree in playing 

 Swiss Family Robinson, and by cutting steps 

 in its soft punky walls had made it easy to go up 

 and down in the hollow. Now it came in handy, 

 for next day when the sun was warm I went 

 there to watch, and from this perch on the roof, 

 I soon saw the interesting family that lived in 

 the cellar near by. There were four little foxes ; 

 they looked curiously like little lambs, with 

 their woolly coats, their long thick legs and in- 



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