Miracles on Maple Hill (Harcourt Young Classics) (9 page)

It was lucky he saw it first or she might have yelled the way she did when she saw the deer. Joe whispered, "Look!"

Up on one of those bumpy hummocks, just standing with its huge bushy tail straight out behind, was a red fox. It stood looking down the hill, one paw lifted like a puppy paying attention to everything. Then it leaped suddenly to another hummock and stood there, looking. The sun was down, and a weird light was over everything, so the fox seemed to have a shine all over.

Marly and Joe didn't move. Neither did the fox. Finally, then, without a sound, looking like a colored shadow, the fox slipped from the hummock and was gone. It disappeared into the ravine, by the brook.

"I'll bet she's got a den around here," Joe said. His voice was low, and when he walked, he walked easy in a certain way he knew, the way he had learned Indians walked. Marly couldn't hear him past ten yards. She wanted to call, "Don't go out of sight, Joe," because dark was starting and there was that strange light, rather eerie, as night fell over Maple Mountain. But she didn't call. She didn't make a sound.

In a minute she was glad she hadn't. Joe came slipping back out of the shadows, beckoning.

"Ssssh! And don't fall over anything!" he said.

"Joe, what is it?"

"Sssssh ..."

At one place the hill went suddenly down, rocky and steep. At the top Joe took hold of her arm hard, and then he pointed with his other hand.

In the dusk were five little foxes, playing together. They tumbled about like puppies. They chased each other. They made little growly sounds, pretending to fight. They were all red, except for their black pointed noses and their sharp black ears, and each one had a white tip on its long red tail.

Joe and Marly watched until they couldn't see a thing but the white tips on the tails. Then these too vanished.

Joe led Marly toward home, over the hummocks, holding her by the hand. She had never loved him so much in all her life. "Joe, if it hadn't been for you, I'd never have seen anything like that. Not
ever,
" she said.

"Why not? I see things all the time," he said. But she could tell he was pleased that she had said it.

The Chrises and Fritz were at the house when they got back. As soon as Marly got into the door and saw them, she cried, "Guess what we saw, Joe and me, up by the high pasture. Some
fox...
" And then she said, suddenly, "Ouch!" because Joe had given her a good big pinch.

He hadn't done it soon enough. She already had the word out of her mouth.

Fritz leaned forward in his chair. "Foxes, huh? So that's where they are!" He turned to Mr. Chris. "I knew they were around close somewhere, didn't I, Chris? I can go in the morning. Maybe if I go before light, I can grab the whole bunch."

Grab
them? Marly felt her eyes go wide. "Fritz, you don't mean you want to catch those little foxes, do you?" she said. "Why, this one has five babies, the cutest little puppies—"

She saw Joe's look. Oh, she never knew when to keep her mouth shut! That's what his look said to her, as plain as day.

"Five little ones, huh? No wonder she's been busy," Mr. Chris said. "How many chickens does that take every day? Every day for a solid week that she-devil has been at my chickens. We put the flock in the coop last night, and she got in under the wall. Or her mate it was. If they aren't the cleverest—"

"And that dog, Tony, doesn't even notice anymore," Chrissie said. "I tell Chris he's too old for a watchdog now. He sleeps like a stone."

Marly's mouth felt dry. "What are you going to do?" she asked. She didn't dare even look at Joe.

A little silence fell. Everybody suddenly remembered Marly and those mice.

"Well," Mr. Chris said, and gave a queer little cough, "to tell you the truth, Marly, this country is overrun with foxes the past few years." He turned back to Fritz and Daddy as if he'd rather not talk to her about it anymore. "There's a good big bounty on them now, and if you want to fix the pelts up, you can get more." Then he looked straight at Joe. "You show Fritz the place in the morning, Joe. Maybe you can get a shot or so yourself."

Was this Mr. Chris? Marly gazed at him.

"Tell you what, we'll split the bounty, Joe, no matter who gets 'em," Fritz said. He was a good shot, Marly knew; she'd heard them tell about how many rabbits and pheasants and squirrels Fritz got in hunting season.

"OK," Joe said.

Marly turned to him in unbelief. After seeing those little foxes playing as the sun went down! "Joe, you wouldn't!" she said.

"Those things eat mice, too," Mr. Chris said hastily. "Marly, they eat hundreds and hundreds of mice. If I just had livestock and grain or even orchards, I'd say the more foxes the better. But chickens—"

Marly couldn't manage another word or stand to hear one. Everybody was agreeing, and she knew there wasn't any use. If even
Joe—
after what he had seen! Suddenly the words of the song Daddy sang sometimes came back to her. Not the song about the fox coming for the big black duck, heavens no! But the one about the cruel hunters in their red coats and the nice boy who felt sorry for the fox and refused to tell them which way it had gone. Had Joe forgotten?

When the Chrises and Fritz went away, Fritz called back to Joe that he'd be calling by real early, maybe about five o'clock. Joe went right up to bed, then, without a word, and Marly felt herself go cold all over. She reached for Daddy's arm as he started for the stairs. "Daddy—about the foxes—"

"Marly, please," Mother said. "There's no earthly use of your worrying about things like that. You've got to learn."

"I was only going to ask Daddy to sing tonight," Marly said. "Those foxes made me think about the fox songs."

Daddy and Mother looked at each other.

"First the one about the fox stealing the goose," Marly said to get them off the track of what she meant to do. Then, she thought, if Daddy would sing the one about the hunters and the wonderful kind boy who wouldn't tell them where the fox went, Joe would understand what she was going to say when she went upstairs. He couldn't help but understand, after that song.

"Well, all right. Just those two, then," Daddy said. "You know, Lee, I'm getting so I can do the hunting song pretty well again."

And he really could. The first verse about the hunters coming and the horns blowing and the scarlet coats went really fast. Marly opened the door to the stairs so Joe would be sure to hear.

"'Say there, youngster,' the huntsmen cry,
'Say, have you seen the fox go by?
Galloping, galloping, galloping, galloping,
Galloping, galloping over the hill?' "

Now,
Marly thought, and opened the door a little wider. This was the verse for Joe to hear.

"But would I be telling them? No, not I!
That I saw the fox go wearily by?
Wearily panting, worn and spent,
Would I be telling the way he went,
Galloping ... galloping ... galloping..."

Daddy was wonderful, the way he made the words sound slow and tired as if the poor fox was ready to drop. Then suddenly he shouted the last two words: "No! Not I!"

It made Marly's hair wiggle every time she heard it, it was so wonderful. But especially tonight. She kissed Daddy good night more fervently than ever before and went upstairs, closing the door after her. But Joe's door was closed, and his light was out.

So he didn't want to talk about it.

But she did. She had to. She opened his door just a crack and whispered, "Joe..."

No sound.

"
Joe
," she said.

Suddenly he spoke. He wasn't in bed at all. He was sitting in the dark by the window. "Just shut up for a while," he said in a low voice. "Can you? I've got to figure out what we can do. If I went over and threw rocks and tramped all over there where the den is ... See, if I could just scare them out of there before Fritz can get there..."

"Oh, Joe, of course you can!" she said. And then, excitedly, "Tonight? Joe, way over to the hill tonight?"

His voice sounded disgusted. "I can't very well wait until morning this time, can I? If Fritz ever heard of me doing a thing like that, he'd think I was crazy. Why, there are seven of'em right there. Four dollars' bounty apiece! That's a lot of money!" She felt his eyes through the dark. "If you just didn't have to tell everything you know! Sometimes I think it's better never to tell you anything—or show you anything."

"Joe, I'm so sorry. Honest, I'll never, never tell anything again. Why, I just thought Mr. Chris and Chrissie and Fritz would love those little foxes." She looked beyond Joe, out of the window. It was deep-dark and scary, and she shivered. "Joe, it'll be horrible to go clear over there past all those bumpy places and everything in the dark."

"If I took a light and then just shot at the ground near the den," he said, thinking aloud, his voice very low. "I guess you could go along and hold the light, couldn't you? Just so we get 'em out of there."

"Joe—you mean I can go?" She felt a glow everywhere, a happiness that was like suddenly running out of the cold into a warm, bright house. She had put the foxes in danger, but now she could go out into the night and help make them safe again.

"The trouble is maybe they'll fight. I don't know. Look what it says in my
Field Book.
" She closed the door, and he turned his light on and showed her the place. "Look—'Male feeds female and young, and leads enemies away from den at risk of his life.' "

"We're not enemies," she said. "It's Fritz he should lead away."

"Too bad Father Fox doesn't know that, now isn't it?" Joe asked. "You say the silliest things I ever heard. But it's not a question of leading Fritz away_he knows where the den is now."

"If only I hadn't mentioned it!" she cried.

"Well, that's spilled milk now. You didn't know." He sat staring at the book as if it might give him an idea. "Maybe if we built a little fire by one door we could smoke 'em out the other, like bees," he said. "They always have a front door and a back door."

She was enchanted. "Joe, how clever—a front door and a back door—"

"Now just act like you're going to bed," he told her. "But put on some warm socks and things. We'll go as soon as Dad and Mother are asleep."

What ages it seemed before Daddy and Mother came upstairs, before they were finally finished in the bathroom and had climbed into bed, before Daddy finally began to snore! Marly heard Joe's door open. She was so excited she could hardly breathe, and a funny little pain started at the back of her neck. Moving as silently as possible, she followed Joe's shadow down the stairs. He was getting the flashlights out of the drawer. Then he got a pocketful of matches and a rag and the can of kerosene.

Goodness, but that road was dark! Joe led the way, only flashing a light once in a while and then very briefly. They passed Chris's house, all dark, and went on to the field and the pasture. How wide and high the night was! Marly had never seen it look so huge. She looked up with the biggest, highest feeling she'd ever had in all her life as they started up the hill. If it hadn't been for Joe walking close ahead, she knew she'd have been scared enough to die in her tracks. Shadows hung over the road and slipped around the trees and stones when Joe flashed the light.

At the top of the slope where the den was, Joe stood still and waited for a long time. Was he afraid? Marly was scared to think he might be, because if
Joe
was scared ... Well, that meant it was really dangerous. But he wasn't scared. He was only planning what to do. After a while he spoke quite loud, and she jumped. She had expected he would whisper. "Look, Marly, you shine both flashlights into the hole, see, when I find it. I'll fix this rag, and then we'll light it and stuff it in and run. See?"

"Where'll we run?"

"Back up here. Then we can watch and see what they do."

That was exactly what they did. Joe made a big noise going down the slope; he let rocks roll under him and everything. The sooner the foxes were scared now, the better, of course. They had come to scare foxes.