The Tale of Mr. Tod Page #2

"The Tale of Mr. Tod" by Beatrix Potter is a children's book telling the story of two of her most notorious characters, Mr. Tod the fox and Tommy Brock the badger. The book revolves around their rivalries, their cunning strategies, and their endless efforts to outwit each other. It's a delightful narrative involving adventure, humor, suspense and clever maneuvers, presenting important life lessons for kids.

• Children

								

seemed to have put down the sack
every dozen yards, to rest.

"He must be very puffed; we are
close behind him, by the scent.
What a nasty person!" said Peter.

The sunshine was still warm and
slanting on the hill pastures. Half
way up, Cottontail was sitting in
her doorway, with four or five half-
grown little rabbits playing about
her; one black and the others
brown.

Cottontail had seen Tommy
Brock passing in the distance.
Asked whether her husband was at
home she replied that Tommy
Brock had rested twice while she
watched him.

He had nodded, and pointed to
the sack, and seemed doubled up
with laughing.--"Come away,
Peter; he will be cooking them;
come quicker!" said Benjamin
Bunny.

They climbed up and up;--"He
was at home; I saw his black ears
peeping out of the hole." "They live
too near the rocks to quarrel with
their neighbors. Come on, Cousin
Benjamin!"

When they came near the wood
at the top of Bull Banks, they went
cautiously. The trees grew amongst
heaped up rocks; and there,
beneath a crag, Mr. Tod had made
one of his homes. It was at the top
of a steep bank; the rocks and
bushes overhung it. The rabbits
crept up carefully, listening and
peeping.

This house was something between
a cave, a prison, and a tumbledown
pigsty. There was a strong
door, which was shut and locked.

The setting sun made the window
panes glow like red flame; but
the kitchen fire was not alight. It
was neatly laid with dry sticks, as
the rabbits could see, when they
peeped through the window.

Benjamin sighed with relief.

But there were preparations
upon the kitchen table which made
him shudder. There was an immense
empty pie dish of blue willow
pattern, and a large carving
knife and fork, and a chopper.

At the other end of the table was
a partly unfolded tablecloth, a
plate, a tumbler, a knife and fork,
salt cellar, mustard and a chair--
in short, preparations for one
person's supper.

No person was to be seen, and
no young rabbits. The kitchen was
empty and silent; the clock had run
down. Peter and Benjamin flattened
their noses against the window,
and stared into the dusk.

Then they scrambled round the
rocks to the other side of the house.
It was damp and smelly, and over-
grown with thorns and briars.

The rabbits shivered in their
shoes.

"Oh my poor rabbit babies!
What a dreadful place; I shall never
see them again!" sighed Benjamin.

They crept up to the bedroom
window. It was closed and bolted
like the kitchen. But there were
signs that this window had been
recently open; the cobwebs were
disturbed, and there were fresh dirty
footmarks upon the windowsill.

The room inside was so dark that
at first they could make out nothing;
but they could hear a noise--a
slow deep regular snoring grunt.
And as their eyes became accustomed
to the darkness, they perceived
that somebody was asleep
on Mr. Tod's bed, curled up under
the blanket.--"He has gone to bed
in his boots," whispered Peter.

Benjamin, who was all of atwitter,
pulled Peter off the windowsill.

Tommy Brock's snores continued,
grunty and regular from Mr.
Tod's bed. Nothing could be seen of
the young family.

The sun had set; an owl began to
hoot in the wood. There were many
unpleasant things lying about that
had much better have been buried;
rabbit bones and skulls, and chickens'
legs and other horrors. It was
a shocking place, and very dark.

They went back to the front of
the house, and tried in every way to
move the bolt of the kitchen window.
They tried to push up a rusty
nail between the window sashes;
but it was of no use, especially
without a light.

They sat side by side outside the
window, whispering and listening.

In half an hour the moon rose
over the wood. It shone full and
clear and cold, upon the house,
amongst the rocks, and in at the
kitchen window. But alas, no little
rabbit babies were to be seen! The
moonbeams twinkled on the carving
knife and the pie dish, and
made a path of brightness across
the dirty floor.

The light showed a little door in
a wall beside the kitchen fireplace
--a little iron door belonging to a
brick oven of that old-fashioned
sort that used to be heated with
faggots of wood.

And presently at the same moment
Peter and Benjamin noticed
that whenever they shook the window
the little door opposite shook
in answer. The young family were
alive; shut up in the oven!

Benjamin was so excited that it
was a mercy he did not awake
Tommy Brock, whose snores continued
solemnly in Mr. Tod's bed.

But there really was not very
much comfort in the discovery.
They could not open the window;
and although the young family was
alive the little rabbits were quite
incapable of letting themselves out;
they were not old enough to crawl.

After much whispering, Peter
and Benjamin decided to dig a tunnel.
They began to burrow a yard
or two lower down the bank. They
hoped that they might be able to
work between the large stones
under the house; the kitchen floor
was so dirty that it was impossible
to say whether it was made of earth
or flags.

They dug and dug for hours.
They could not tunnel straight on
account of stones; but by the end of
the night they were under the
kitchen floor. Benjamin was on his
back scratching upwards. Peter's
claws were worn down; he was
outside the tunnel, shuffling sand
away. He called out that it was
morning--sunrise; and that the
jays were making a noise down
below in the woods.

Benjamin Bunny came out of the
dark tunnel shaking the sand from
his ears; he cleaned his face with
his paws. Every minute the sun
shone warmer on the top of the
hill. In the valley there was a sea of
white mist, with golden tops of
trees showing through.

Again from the fields down
below in the mist there came the
angry cry of a jay, followed by the
sharp yelping bark of a fox!

Then those two rabbits lost their
heads completely. They did the
most foolish thing that they could
have done. They rushed into their
short new tunnel, and hid themselves
at the top end of it, under
Mr. Tod's kitchen floor.

Mr. Tod was coming up Bull
Banks, and he was in the very worst
of tempers. First he had been upset
by breaking the plate. It was his
own fault; but it was a china plate,
the last of the dinner service that
had belonged to his grandmother,
old Vixen Tod. Then the midges
had been very bad. And he had
failed to catch a hen pheasant on
her nest; and it had contained only
five eggs, two of them addled. Mr.
Tod had had an unsatisfactory
night.

As usual, when out of humor, he
determined to move house. First he
tried the pollard willow, but it was
damp; and the otters had left a
dead fish near it. Mr. Tod likes
nobody's leavings but his own.

He made his way up the hill; his
temper was not improved by noticing
unmistakable marks of badger.
No one else grubs up the moss so
wantonly as Tommy Brock.

Mr. Tod slapped his stick upon
the earth and fumed; he guessed
where Tommy Brock had gone to.
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