Reddy Fox Is Impudent
A saucy tongue is dangerous to possess;
Be sure some day ’t will get you in a mess.
—_Old Granny Fox_.
Reddy Fox is headstrong and, like most headstrong people, is given to
thinking that his way is the best way just because it is _his_ way. He
is smart, is Reddy Fox. Yes, indeed, Reddy Fox is very, very smart. He
has to be in order to live. But a great deal of what he knows he
learned from Old Granny Fox. The very best tricks he knows she taught
him. She began teaching him when he was so little that he tumbled over
his own feet. It was she who taught him how to hunt, that it is better
never to steal chickens near home but to go a long way off for them,
and how to fool Bowser the Hound.
It was Granny who taught Reddy how to use his little black nose to
follow the tracks of careless young Rabbits, and how to catch Meadow
Mice under the snow. In fact, there is little Reddy knows which he
didn’t learn from wise, shrewd Old Granny Fox.
But as he grew bigger and bigger, until he was quite as big as Granny
herself, he forgot what he owed to her. He grew to have a very good
opinion of himself and to feel that he knew just about all there was to
know. So sometimes when he had done foolish or careless things and
Granny had scolded him, telling him he was big enough and old enough to
know better, he would sulk and go off muttering to himself. But he
never quite dared to be openly disrespectful to Granny, and this, of
course, was quite as it should have been.
“If only I could catch Granny doing something foolish or careless,” he
would say to himself. But he never could, and he had begun to think
that he never would. But now at last Granny, clever Old Granny Fox, had
been careless! She had allowed Farmer Brown’s boy to catch her napping!
Reddy did wish he had been there to see it himself. But anyway, he had
been told about it, and he made up his mind that the next time Granny
said anything sharp to him about his carelessness he would have
something to say back. Yes, Sir, Reddy Fox was deliberately planning to
answer back, which, as you know, is always disrespectful to one’s
elders.
At last the chance came. Reddy did a thing no truly wise Fox ever will
do. He went two nights in succession to the same henhouse, and the
second time he barely escaped being shot. Old Granny Fox found out
about it. How she found out Reddy doesn’t know to this day, but find
out she did, and she gave him such a scolding as even her sharp tongue
had seldom given him.
“You are the stupidest Fox I ever heard of,” scolded Granny.
“I’m no more stupid than you are!” retorted Reddy in the most impudent
way.
“What’s that?” demanded Granny. “What’s that you said?”
“I said I’m no more stupid than you are, and what is more, I hope I’m
not so stupid. I know better than to take a nap in broad daylight right
under the very nose of Farmer Brown’s boy.” Reddy grinned in the most
impudent way as he said this.
Granny’s eyes snapped. Then things happened. Reddy was cuffed this way
and cuffed that way and cuffed the other way until it seemed to him
that the air was full of black paws, every one of which landed on his
head or face with a sting that made him whimper and put his tail
between his legs, and finally howl.
“There!” cried Granny, when at last she had to stop because she was
quite out of breath. “Perhaps that will teach you to be respectful to
your elders. I _was_ careless and stupid, and I am perfectly ready to
admit it, because it has taught me a lesson. Wisdom often is gained
through mistakes, but never when one is not willing to admit the
mistakes. No Fox lives long who makes the same mistake twice. And those
who are impudent to their elders come to no good end. I’ve got a fat
goose hidden away for dinner, but you will get none of it.”
“I—I wish I’d never heard of Granny’s mistake,” whined Reddy to himself
as he crept dinnerless to bed.
“You ought to wish that you hadn’t been impudent,” whispered a small
voice down inside him.