But he kept his mouth tight
closed, did Mr. Fox, and was very humble and polite to everybody.
Every night he came home early and went to bed by sundown, and
everybody said what good habits Mr. Fox had.
"But when everybody else was asleep, Mr. Fox used to steal out and be
gone half the night. Yes, Sir, sometimes he'd be gone until almost
morning. But he always took care to get home before any of his
neighbors were awake, and then he'd wait until everybody was up before
he showed himself. When he came out and started to hunt for his
breakfast, some one was sure to tell him of mischief done during the
darkness of the night. Sometimes it was a storehouse broken into, and
the best things taken. Sometimes it was of terrible frights that some
of the littlest people had received by being wakened in the night and
seeing a fierce face with long, sharp teeth grinning at them.
Sometimes it was of worse things that were told in whispers. Mr. Fox
used to listen as if very much shocked, and say that something ought
to be done about it, and wonder who it could be who would do such
dreadful things.
"By and by things got so bad that they reached the ears of Old Mother
Nature, and she came to find out what it all meant. Now, the very
night before she arrived, Mrs. Quack, who lived on the river bank,
had a terrible fright. Somebody sprang upon her as she was sleeping,
and in the struggle she lost all her tail feathers. She hurried to
tell Old Mother Nature all about it, and big tears rolled down her
cheeks as she told how she had lost all her beautiful tail feathers.
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