THE SINS OF SILVERTIP THE FOX
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Told at Twilight Stories
By JOHN BRECK
MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE THE BUNNY
NIBBLE RABBIT MAKES MORE FRIENDS
THE SINS OF SILVERTIP THE FOX
TAD COON’S TRICKS
THE WAVY TAILED WARRIOR
TAD COON’S GREAT ADVENTURE
THE BAD LITTLE OWLS
THE JAY BIRD WHO WENT TAME
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[Illustration: Silvertip wades across the pond.]
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Told at Twilight Stories
The Sins of Silvertip the Fox
by
John Breck
Illustrated by
William T. Andrews
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y
First Edition
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CONTENTS
I. How Nibble Rescued the Red Cow
II. Why Tommy ’Most Lost His Temper
III. The Red Cow’s Secret
IV. Why Louie Thomson Didn’t Enjoy His Visit
V. Nibble Tells One Secret and Hears Another
VI. A Game of Tag in Tommy’s Barn
VII. The White Cow Begins a Story
VIII. How the Man’s Wife Made the Compact with the Cows
IX. How a Bunny Undertook to Hunt a Fox
X. The Wicked Plot of the Bad Little Owls
XI. Why the Little Owls’ Plans Went Wrong
XII. How Long Ears Heard Bad News
XIII. How the Great Hunt Ended
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Silvertip wades across the pond
Tommy finds a trap
Nibble and Muskrat visit the Red Cow
The Red Cow walked around and around
Silvertip trotted past with the poor chicken
There was Nibble, perched on top of the partition
Nibble visits the chicken coop
Silvertip hid under the culvert
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THE SINS OF SILVERTIP THE FOX
CHAPTER I
HOW NIBBLE RESCUED THE RED COW
Never before, in the early, early spring, had there been so much
excitement down at Doctor Muskrat’s Pond. Of course, spring’s the season
for visitors. They were always on the lookout for old friends winging up
from the south. The Beautiful Duck and his mate, who’d warned Nibble
Rabbit about the Terrible Storm, stopped in to wish everyone a happy
summer. Then they laughingly beaked their way northward through a flurry
of late snow. Bad weather couldn’t scare them now.
They kept a lookout for old enemies, too, as wise Woodsfolk always must.
But there was one visitor who puzzled them. Was he an enemy, or was he a
friend? Doctor Muskrat himself couldn’t say. Or rather, he wouldn’t. But
that wasn’t what started all the discussion.
The visitor was Tommy Peele. And his old dog Watch said he owned the
Woods and Fields. Now did that mean he owned the Woodsfolk who lived in
them? That’s what everyone wanted to know. For the Woodsfolk were wild.
Could a wild beast ever belong to any one? Doctor Muskrat had never
heard of such a thing.
“I certainly wouldn’t mind,” chirped Chewee the Chickadee. “I get a full
crop ’most every time I see him.”
“I guess you’d mind if he locked you up like he did Nibble,” remarked
Chaik Jay. “That’s what it means to belong to him.”
“No, it doesn’t,” contradicted Nibble. (He really knew more about the
little boy than any one else. He hadn’t liked being locked up, but he
did like Tommy.) “Watch says I belong to him just the same out of my
cage as I did in it. And he feeds me just the same, too.”
“Hmm!” sniffed Doctor Muskrat. He was wondering if it was that way with
traps. ’Cause you remember Tommy’d caught him in one, and then let him
go again. And Tommy’d fed him, too.
“You know,” said Nibble, “all the beasts up at the barn say——” And then
for the first time he heard the swishing in the bulrushes behind him.
“Ow!” he squealed. And he jumped. For the starey eyes of the cross Red
Cow came peering through them.
“Swish!” went Doctor Muskrat through his hole in the ice. “Flutter!”
went the scary wings of Chewee the Chickadee, and even Chaik the
Bluejay, who isn’t afraid of many things, went off with a startled
“squawk,” while Nibble Rabbit dashed through a tunnel he knew in the
Quail’s Thicket. But you know Nibble. First he’s scared—and then he’s
curious. As soon as he was safely hidden he stopped to listen. “Stupid
beast,” he said to himself. “Why couldn’t she have waited until we got
done talking?”
“M-m-moo!” lowed the Red Cow in a troubled voice.
Nibble came creeping back again. Pretty soon he sat up and stretched his
neck to get a good look at her. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Is anything the matter?”
“M-m-m-yes,” moaned the Red Cow, swinging her head restlessly from side
to side and looking terribly troubled. “I don’t know just what it is,
but I’m all afraid! Isn’t there any place where wolves don’t come? Or
Men?”
“No Man comes here,” said Nibble, “’cepting only Tommy Peele—and he’s
just a little one.” Then, because the Red Cow looked so unhappy, he
burst out cheerfully, “Come on. I’ll show you where you can hide, even,
from him.”
But she looked at him very doubtfully with her near-sighted eyes.
“M-m-no-no,” she hesitated. “You haven’t forgotten that I tried to kill
you when you hung that flapping thing on my horn.” She meant the door of
his cage that she jerked off to get at the carrot Tommy Peele had given
Nibble for breakfast. But she insisted on thinking that he had fastened
the door to her. She was a very stupid thing.
“That’s all right,” he explained.
“You let me out of the cage, so we’re all fair and square.”
By this time she was so puzzled she couldn’t remember anything. But she
could tell that Nibble wasn’t angry, so she followed him. And he showed
her a fine dry spot on the top of a little hillock, all shut in by
clustering thorns. For Nibble wouldn’t trust anything but the Pickery
Things for even a cow to hide in.
There she stayed and there she slept very comfortably. Even the cold
wind that came up with the sunset couldn’t reach her. And Nibble dug
down a little way into the mud and ate the top off a mallow root and a
couple of plantains for his supper. And then he had to lick himself very
dry and clean before he popped into his own comfortable hole.
He slept late next morning because he’d stayed awake puzzling over that
Red Cow’s doings the night before. But as soon as he had washed his face
he set out to find her, for he’d thought of a lot more questions to ask.
And there she was, crouched down close in her hiding-place, with her
eyes bigger and starier than ever. “Hssh!” she snorted through her wide,
windy nostrils. “There was a Man! But he didn’t see me at all!”