Out of Context

Whitefoot the Wood Mouse
Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess

So his heart went pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat as he wondered if Butcher had seen him. He didn’t have to wait long to find out. Butcher flew to a tree back of Whitefoot and then straight at him. Whitefoot dodged around to the other side of the tree. Then began a dreadful game. At least, it was dreadful to Whitefoot. This way and that way around the trunk of that tree he dodged, while Butcher did his best to catch him.

Whitefoot would not have minded this so much, had he not been so tired, and had he known of a hiding-place close at hand. But he was tired, very tired, for you remember he had had what was a very long and terrible journey to him. He had felt almost too tired to climb that tree in the first place to see if it had any holes in it higher up. Now he didn’t know whether to keep on going up or to go down. Two or three times he dodged around the tree without doing either. Then he decided to go up.

Now Butcher was enjoying this game of dodge. If he should catch Whitefoot, he would have a good dinner. If he didn’t catch Whitefoot, he would simply go hungry a little longer. So you see, there was a very big difference in the feelings of Whitefoot and Butcher. Whitefoot had his life to lose, while Butcher had only a dinner to lose.