ERIC, THE FOX

ERIC was born in the far back burrow of his mother's choice and was the smallest of the four cubs. Perhaps it was for that reason that she brought him more of the tidbits of birds and meat that she obtained, coming through the long tunnel under the old tree to where the four pups wriggled and grew, fast, fast, fast.
ERIC, the smallest, soon caught up with his three sisters, he being the apple of his mother's eye as he was the only male.

Soon she thrust the four outside the den, and keeping a wary eye on predators, especially the hawks, she taught them the essentials of survival, they tumbling nd playing in the early motning dew and rushing immediately back into the burrow if any promise of danger occurred.

They were dispersed to the four winds as soon as they were able to catch and kill and eat smaller animals, particularly baby rabbits and mice and snakes and voles.
ERIC was the first to wander completely away from home and mother, never to see any of them again.
He had made a three-mile journey to a hilltop where he could look down and see a perfect small farm, consisting of perhaps 100 acres, a barn, several small buildings, and a pretty white clapboard house.

ERIC, now six months old and approaching maturity, felt instinctively that this was his place.
He waited until midnight, and then slipped warily down among the buildings and found a hole btween the stones that held up the small chicken house. He dove into the darkness under the shed, and was soon installed in a digged bed his beautiful whiskered face toward the entrance hole and escape route.
As he sat pondering what to do next, a small mouse ran past his nose and was quickly made into a hot supper.
An hour later, he ventured out the hole and ran up the ramp usually used by the chickens to enter their home. He found them all asleep and moving with great caution, decided that the mouse-meat had been enough for tonight ...he would be content with carrying back a large egg to his newly acquired den. He did so, and once curled down in the new home, cracked and ate the egg, shell and all. And so to sleep.

ERIC was awakened at dawn by the baying of a hound who seemed to be right in his face. He wasn't, but he was at the small entrance under the shed, and was digging with both paws and making a very loud dog noise.

Eric heard another voice, that of the Farmer,""What are you going for, dog? A mouse or rat? Come off there and follow me to the

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