"We'll soon settle that," I replied, and turned back, but as soon as I
had taken one step from the road, up jumped Scarface, for it was he, and
ran. A fire had swept the middle of the pasture, leaving a broad belt
of black; over this he scurried till he came to the unburnt yellow grass
again, where he squatted down and was lost to view. He had been watching
us all the time, and would not have moved had we kept to the road. The
wonderful part of this is, not that he resembled the round stones and
dry grass, but that he knew he did, and was ready to profit by it.
We soon found that it was Scarface and his wife Vixen that had made our
woods their home and our barnyard their base of supplies.
Next morning a search in the pines showed a great bank of earth that had
been scratched up within a few months. It must have come from a hole,
and yet there was none to be seen. It is well known that a really cute
fox, on digging 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 innocent expressions, and yet a second
glance at their broad, sharp-nosed, sharp-eyed visages showed that each
of these innocents was the makings of a crafty old fox.
They played about, basking in the sun, or wrestling with each other
till a slight sound made them scurry under ground. But their alarm was
needless, for the cause of it was their mother; she stepped from the
bushes bringing another hen--number seventeen as I remember. A low call
from her and the little fellows came tumbling out. Then began a scene
that I thought charming, but which my uncle would not have enjoyed at
all.
They rushed on the hen, and tussled and fought with it, and each other,
while the mother, keeping a sharp eye for enemies, looked on with fond
delight. The expression on her face was remarkable. It was first a
grinning of delight, but her usual look of wildness and cunning was
there, nor were cruelty and nervousness lacking, but over all was the
unmistakable look of the mother's pride and love.
The base of my tree was hidden in bushes and much lower than the knoll
where the den was, so I could come and go at will without scaring the
foxes.
For many days I went there and saw much of the training of the young
ones. They early learned to turn to statuettes sound, and then
on hearing it again or finding other cause for fear, to run for shelter.
Some animals have so much mother-love that it overflows and benefits
outsiders. Not so old Vixen it would seem. Her pleasure in the cubs led
to most refined cruelty. For she often brought home to them mice and
birds alive, and with diabolic gentleness would avoid doing them serious
hurt so that the cubs might have larger scope to torment them.
There was a woodchuck that lived over in the hill orchard. He was
neither handsome nor interesting, but he knew how to take care of
himself. He had dug a den between the roots of an old pine stump, so
that the foxes could not follow him by digging. But hard work was not
their way of life; wits they believed worth more then elbowgrease. This
woodchuck usually sunned himself on the stump each morning. If he saw a
fox near he went down in the door of his den, or if the enemy was very
near he went inside and stayed long enough for the danger to pass.
One morning Vixen and her mate seemed to decide that it was time the
children knew something about the broad subject of Woodchucks,
and further that this orchard woodchuck would serve nicely for an
object-lesson. So they went together to the orchard-fence unseen by old
Chuckie on his stump. Scarface then showed himself in the orchard and
quietly walked in a line so as to pass by the stump at a distance, but
never once turned his head or allowed the ever-watchful woodchuck to
think himself seen. When the fox entered the field the woodchuck quietly
dropped down to the mouth of his den: here he waited as the fox passed,
but concluding that after all wisdom is the better part, went into his
hole.
This was what the foxes wanted. Vixen had kept out of sight, but now ran
swiftly to the stump and hid behind it. Scarface had kept straight on,
going very slowly. The woodchuck had not been frightened, so before long
his head popped up between the roots and he looked around. There was
that fox still going on, farther and farther away. The woodchuck grew
bold as the fox went, and came out farther, and then seeing the coast
clear, he scrambled onto the stump, and with one spring Vixen had him
and shook him till he lay senseless. Scarface had watched out of the
corner of his eye and now came running back. But Vixen took the chuck in
her jaws and made for the den, so he saw he wasn't needed.
Back to the den came Vix, and carried the chuck so carefully that he was
able to struggle a little when she got there. A low 'woof' at the den
brought the little fellows out like schoolboys to play. She threw the
wounded animal to them and they set on him like four little furies,
uttering little growls and biting little bites with all the strength of
their baby jaws, but the woodchuck fought for his life and beating them
off slowly hobbled to the shelter of a thicket. The little ones pursued
like a pack of hounds and dragged at his tail and flanks, but could not
hold him back. So Vixen overtook him with a couple of bounds and dragged
him again into the open for the children to worry. Again and again this
rough sport went on till one of the little ones was badly bitten, and
his squeal of pain roused Vix to end the woodchuck's misery and serve
him up at once.
Not far from the den was a hollow overgrown with coarse grass, the
playground of a colony of field-mice. The earliest lesson in woodcraft
that the little ones took, away from the den, was in this hollow.
Here they had their first course of mice, the easiest of all game. In
teaching, the main thing was example, aided by a deep-set instinct.
The old fox, also, had one or two signs meaning "lie still and watch,"
"come, do as I do," and so on, that were much used.
So the merry lot went to this hollow one calm evening and Mother Fox
made them lie still in the grass. Presently a faint squeak showed that
the game was astir. Vix rose up and went on tiptoe into the grass--not
crouching but as high as she could stand, sometimes on her hind legs so
as to get a better view. The runs that the mice follow are hidden under
the grass tangle, and the only way to know the whereabouts of a mouse is
by seeing the slight shaking of the grass, which is the reason why mice
are hunted only on calm days.
And the trick is to locate the mouse and seize him first and see him
afterward. Vix soon made a spring, and in the middle of the bunch of
dead grass that she grabbed was a field-mouse squeaking his last squeak.
He was soon gobbled, and the four awkward little foxes tried to do the
same as their mother, and when at length the eldest for the first time
in his life caught game, he quivered with excitement and ground his
pearly little milk-teeth into the mouse with a rush of inborn savageness
that must have surprised even himself.
Another home lesson was on the red-squirrel. One of these noisy, vulgar
creatures, lived close by and used to waste part of each day scolding
the foxes from some safe perch. The cubs made many vain attempts to
catch him as he ran across their glade from one tree to an other, or
spluttered and scolded at them a foot or so out of reach. But old Vixen
was up in natural history--she knew squirrel nature and took the case in
hand when the proper time came. She hid the children and lay down flat
in the middle of the open glade. The saucy low-minded squirrel came
and scolded as usual. But she moved no hair. He came nearer and at last
right over head to chatter:
"You brute you, you brute you."
But Vix lay as dead. This was very perplexing, so the squirrel came down
the trunk and peeping about made a nervous dash across the grass, to
another tree, again to scold from a safe perch.
"You brute you, you useless brute, scarrr-scarrrr."
But flat and lifeless on the grass lay Vix. This was most tantilizing to
the squirrel. He was naturally curious and disposed to be venturesome,
so again he came to the ground and scurried across the glade nearer than
before. Still as death lay Vix, "surely she was dead." And the little
foxes began to wonder if their mother wasn't asleep.
But the squirrel was working himself into a little craze of foolhardy
curiosity. He had dropped a piece of bark on Vix's head, he had used up
his list of bad words and he had done it all over again, without getting
a sign of life. So after a couple more dashes across the glade he
ventured within a few feet of the really watchful Vix, who sprang to her
feet and pinned him in a twinkling.
"And the little ones picked the bones e-oh."
Thus the rudiments of their education were laid, and afterward as
they grew stronger they were taken farther afield to begin the higher
branches of trailing and scenting.
For each kind of prey they were taught a way to hunt, for every animal
has some great strength or it could not live, and some great weakness
or the others could not live. The squirrel's weakness was foolish
curiosity; the fox's that he can't climb a tree. And the training of
the little foxes was all shaped to take advantage of the weakness of the
other creatures and to make up for their own by defter play where they
are strong.
From their parents they learned the chief axioms of the fox world. How,
is not easy to say. But that they learned this in company with their
parents was clear.