Where I
grew up (Pine Village, Indiana), the black loam of the flat farmland stretched to the horizon’s cobalt
line encircling the viewer. The dome of the sky cupped the life below. Few
trees interrupted the view of clouds, of sunrises, of sunsets. Toward the back
of our farm, nearly a mile long, a hedge had managed to hold on in a fencerow.
Buffeted by the blizzards of winter and the winds of early spring, the Osage
orange trees looked splintered and forlorn, their spiky limbs reaching down as
if to grab the earth to keep from being blown away. For many years, a family of
foxes lived among the hedge apples.
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A Fox in Winter
Engraving by Henry Wolf (1852–1916)
In Harper’s
New Monthly Magazine
December 1884
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When
disking the earth, I occasionally glimpsed a red fox skipping home, its fluffy
tail, almost as big as its body, flying behind and its dark legs flashing like
a gentleman’s tall boots during Great Britain’s Regency Era. The white of its
cheeks and chin only emphasized the fox’s slight grin, amused at its own
cleverness, probably. In moments, the fox vanished amid the tangle of weeds
wrapped around the trunks of the venerable Osage orange trees.
Once on an
ominous night in the spring, I shook Spot’s leash, and he came running to go
for a walk beyond the fenced yard. Spot was my family’s fox terrier, and a much
admired dog was he! When he enjoyed an activity, he more than enjoyed it: he loved it! … and he adored going for a walk!
Spot and I
set out toward the north past the security of the house, barn, and
outbuildings. We took the well-beaten path that the tractors took beside the
fields. The wind came in long exhalations that could be heard far off before it
could be felt. The air was chilled but not frozen, as it had been in the recent
winter. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw small gray clouds scudding
overhead. They appeared to be so low that I could touch them, but such was
merely an illusion.
Now and
then, Spot tugged on the leash, and I quickened my pace to keep up with him. He
was having the time of his life, turning his head from side to side, sampling
the smorgasbord of smells low to the ground. After a time, we reached the back
of the farm. Spot wanted to explore the hedgerow, so I followed him as he
trotted toward the gnarled trees.
Suddenly,
we heard a growl. “Fox,” I immediately thought. Instinctively, I grabbed Spot
around his belly and lifted him to my chest. As the moon broke from behind
clouds, I saw the ghostly white of the fox’s face staring in our direction. I
backed slowly away. The fox began taking slow steps toward us. Just then, I
heard a yipping and yelping that could only be from kits. Sure enough, four pups
came tumbling out of the weeds to prance around the legs of their mother!
I kept
backing up until I was in the center of the freshly plowed field. Keeping my
balance was tricky, as the clods were tilted wherever the plowshares had left them.
Growling continually, the mother fox had followed us to a distance of perhaps
thirty feet from her den. Abruptly, she whipped around and ran back among the
trees, her cubs leaping and tumbling about her in what they perhaps perceived
as a game.
I breathed
a sigh of relief. Walking back to the house, I traversed a considerable
distance before I thought it was safe to put Spot back on the ground. I
complimented him because he had refrained from barking throughout the entire
encounter with the fox family. I suppose that my hugging him tightly to my body
had persuaded him that we were in a potentially dangerous situation, and his
instincts likely convinced him that he was better off to remain silent. I think
that, had he barked, he might have incited the fox somehow, and I was glad that
he had kept his mouth shut.
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