Doctor Rabbit and Brushtail the Fox | Page 9

at Brushtail, and both of them looked at Farmer Roe's house and laughed and laughed.
But Doctor Rabbit was not pleased. I should say he wasn't pleased, and he wondered how these two terrible creatures would ever be driven away from the woods. And he wondered more than ever who it was that kept growling in the thicket.

THE GROWLERS COME OUT OF THE THICKET
After Mr. and Mrs. Brushtail had gone back into the thicket, Doctor Rabbit wanted to run home. He surely was uncomfortable so near to Brushtail and Mrs. Brushtail.
"And still," he thought to himself, "since I am here, I'll just stay a little longer and discover all I can."
Well, the growling went on for a while in the thicket, and then something happened that certainly surprised Doctor Rabbit. Mrs. Brushtail came out into the open with Farmer Roe's chicken, partly eaten, and she was followed by four little foxes!
Mrs. Brushtail dropped the chicken on the ground for the little foxes, and then she sprang upon a log and just lay there and watched them. Mr. Fox trotted off into the woods again.
"He's probably going after another hen," thought Doctor Rabbit, "or after Stubby Woodchuck or Chatty Red Squirrel or any of us he can catch." And Doctor Rabbit hoped all his little friends would be on the lookout.
While Mrs. Brushtail lay up on the log and looked on proudly, how the little foxes did pull at that dead chicken and growl!
"And so there are the growlers I heard in the thicket!" Doctor Rabbit thought to himself.
Those little foxes might have looked pretty to some people, they were so young and so playful and so funny; but they did not look pretty to Doctor Rabbit. Indeed they did not. They looked like four terrible monsters. Their little eyes snapped like the eyes of terrible little savages, and their tiny teeth, sharp as needles, pulled feathers and sank into the chicken.
It was certainly true that Mrs. Brushtail was teaching her very small children how to eat chicken, and as she lay on the log and watched them, she seemed perfectly satisfied with them.
After the little foxes had growled and pulled at the chicken for a good while, Brushtail was seen coming through the woods with something in his mouth. Then suddenly Doctor Rabbit became almost sick with fear. He thought for a second that Brushtail had caught Stubby Woodchuck, but it proved to be no one but a large and ugly old woodrat that had lately grown so cross and savage that all the little creatures of the Big Green Woods were afraid of him.
Doctor Rabbit was very glad indeed that it was that particular old woodrat, because he had really become dangerous.
Brushtail dropped the woodrat down before the little foxes, and how they did did begin pulling and biting him! Mrs. Brushtail up on the log smiled ever so broadly at this. But it was not a pleasing smile to Doctor Rabbit, hiding in the briar patch. I should say not! It was a terrible smile.
The next instant Yappy came tearing through the woods, right toward the thicket, and Doctor Rabbit had a moment of hope. But Mrs. Brushtail just uttered one quick, low growl, and every little fox scurried into the thicket. That time Doctor Rabbit had a good view of the inside of the thicket, and he saw what became of the foxes. They went into a hole under some rocks by a large papaw bush. "So that," said Doctor Rabbit to himself, "is where Mr. and Mrs. Brushtail and their little Brushies have their den."
Brushtail did not run into the thicket with Mrs. Brushtail and the little foxes. When he saw Yappy coming toward the thicket he ran right toward the excited dog and then hid behind another thicket. When Yappy came near, Brushtail sprang right out, and away he ran. Yappy bayed loudly, and away he went through the woods after Brushtail. You see now what Brushtail was doing--he was leading Yappy away from that den of little foxes!

JACK RABBIT SPRAINS HIS FOOT
When Mrs. Brushtail and the four little Brushies ran into the hole in the thicket and Father Brushtail ran away through the woods with Yappy in hot pursuit, Doctor Rabbit decided he had better be going. He had discovered a great deal anyway, and now he wanted to find some of his friends and tell them about it.
Doctor Rabbit decided first to go over to the Wide Prairie and see his friend Jack Rabbit. Doctor Rabbit was not much afraid to cross the Wide Prairie, now that Ki-yi Coyote was gone and Brushtail the Fox was busy, for the time at least.
Doctor Rabbit had not been over to see Jack Rabbit's family for a long time, and he was considerably surprised to find Jack