such a racket that they would be sure to bring some one from the
farmhouse. The thing to do was to be patient until he could catch one
without alarming the others. Then perhaps he would be able to catch
another. Reddy decided to be patient and wait.




CHAPTER XXXIV

PATIENCE AND IMPATIENCE

Patience is a virtue
In a cause that's right.
In a cause that isn't,
It's a cause for fright.

_Bowser the Hound._


One of the first things that the little people of the Green Forest and
the Green Meadows who hunt other little people learn is patience.
Sometimes it takes a long time to learn this, but it is a necessary
lesson. Reddy Fox had learned it. Reddy knew that often even his
cleverness would not succeed without patience. When he was young he had
lost many a good meal through impatience.

Reddy could not remember when he had been more hungry than he was now.
Lying there behind the fallen tree, watching the fat hens walking about
unsuspectingly just a little way from him, it seemed to him that he