THE FOX 



When in palliation of the slaughter of 

 a turkey that has robbed a field of his 

 weight in corn they offset the destruc- 

 tion of hordes of field mice, they are 

 reviled by those who are righteously ex- 

 alted above the idleness of hunting and 

 the foolishness of sentiment. 



At such hands one fares no better 

 who covets the fox, not for the sport he 

 may give, but for the tang of wild flavor 

 that he imparts to woods that have 

 almost lost it and to fields that lose 

 nothing of thrift by its touch. 



You may not see him, but it is good 

 to know that anything so untamed has 

 been so recently where your plodding 

 footsteps go. You see in last night's 

 snowfall the sharp imprint of his pads, 

 where he has deviously quested mice 

 under the mat of aftermath, or trotted 

 slowly, pondering, to other more prom- 

 ising fields, or there gone airily cours- 

 ing away over the moonlit pastures. In 

 imagination you see all his agile gaits 

 and graceful poses. Now listening with 

 pricked ears to the mufifled squeak of a 

 mouse, now pouncing upon his captured 

 but yet unseen prize, or where on sud- 

 272 



