Pool and headed straight for the Old Pasture for which he had started
in the first place. He wished now that he had gone straight there.
Then he wouldn't have seen the suet tied out of reach to the branch of
a tree in the Old Orchard; he wouldn't have seen the Bob Whites fly
away to safety just as he felt almost sure of catching one; he
wouldn't have seen Billy Mink bring a fine fish out of the water and
eat it right before him. It is bad enough to be starving with no food
in sight, but to be as hungry as Reddy Fox was and to see food just
out of reach, to smell it, and not be able to get it is, -- well, it
is more than most folks can stand patiently.

So Reddy Fox was grumbling to himself as he hurried to the Old Pasture
and his heart was very bitter. It seemed to him that everything was
against him. His neighbors had food, but he had none, not so much as
a crumb. It was unfair. Old Mother Nature was unjust. If he could
climb he could get food. If he could fly he could get food. If he
could dive he could get food. But he could neither climb, fly, nor
dive. He didn't stop to think that Old Mother Nature had given him
some of the sharpest wits in all the Green Forest or on all the Green
Meadows; that she had given him a wonderful nose; that she had given
him the keenest of ears; that she had given him speed excelled by few.
He forgot these things and was so busy thinking bitterly of the
things he didn't have that he forgot to use his wits and nose and
ears when he reached the Old Pasture. The result was that he trotted
right past Old Jed Thumper, the big gray Rabbit, who was sitting
behind a little bush holding his breath. The minute Old Jed saw that
Reddy was safely past, he started for his bull-briar castle as fast as
he could.

It was not until then that Reddy discovered him. Of course, Reddy