Out of Context

Happy Star Wars Day!

Old Granny Fox
Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess

But just where the Laughing Brook joins it there was a little place where there was open water. Billy Mink was on the ice at its edge, and just as Reddy got there Billy dived in. A minute later he climbed out with a fish in his mouth.

“Give me a bite,” begged Reddy.

“Catch your own fish,” retorted Billy Mink. “I have to work hard enough for what I get as it is.”

Reddy was afraid to go out on the ice where Billy was, and so he sat and watched him eat that fine fish. Then Billy dived into the water again and disappeared. Reddy waited a long time, but Billy did not return. “I wish I could dive,” gulped Reddy, thinking of the fine fish somewhere under the ice.

And this wish was quite as foolish as the other wishes.

‘T is not the foes that are without
But those that are within
That give us battles that we find
The hardest are to win.
-Old Granny Fox

After the last of his three foolish wishes, Reddy Fox left the Smiling Pool and headed straight for the Old Pasture for which 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.