"Because they were mad," said her twin promptly. "That old mother fox
didn't want me in there."

The adventure was happily ended; that is, for Laddie and Vi. Not so for
the foxes. For Mr. Armatage and the gardener came with shovel and club
and they dug down to the foxes' den. But the children had not done their
work of closing the entrance well, and just as Mr. Armatage broke
through into her den, Mrs. Fox and her puppies scurried out and away
into the pine woods. But she had to look for a new home, for her old one
was completely broken up.

After this the little Bunkers and the Armatage children trooped up to
the house and went to the room where Mammy June had been put to bed. The
doctor had already been to see her this morning.

The old colored woman was propped up with pillows and she wore the usual
turban on her head. She smiled delightedly when she saw the white
children and hailed them as gayly as though she were not in pain.

"Lawsy me, childern!" cried Mammy June. "Has you come to see how I is? I
sure has got good friends, I sure has! An' if Ebenezer Caliper
Spotiswood Meiggs was back home yere where he b'longs, there wouldn't be
a happier ol' woman in all Georgia--no, sir!

"For Mistah Armatage say he's gwine have me another house built before
spring. And it'll be a lot mo' fixy than my ol' house--yes, sir! Wait
till my Sneezer comes home and sees it--Tut, tut! He ain't mebbe comin'
home no mo'!"