by Joan Carris
“So I’m part of the fox family!” the puppy said.
“Yes, except they are wild foxes. You are a tame dog.”
“I could be a wild dog! I’m tough!” Sir Walter said.
“You have to be born wild,” Ernest said. “And anyway, what would you eat?”
Gabby croaked, “Mice,” and made the sound of someone throwing up.
Grampa chuckled and left the pen, heading for the barn. “Somebody around here has to milk the cows,” he said.
AFTER GRAMPA HAD LEFT for the barn, Milly inched closer to the foxes’ pen. “I can show you how to catch a mouse,” she said.
“We can figure it out,” White Tip retorted. “Anyway, how would you know? You live with a human!”
“We all do, and we’re very happy, thank you,” Ernest said.
Milly added smugly, “I sleep with Grampa, too.”
“You sleep in the same den as a human?” asked White Tip.
“Grampa calls it a bed,” she said. “And when I’m older and have kittens, I plan to have them in that bed. Grampa will be so excited.”
Gabby looked at Ernest. “More cats?” she murmured.
“One is really plenty,” he said.
Bibby burst out, “We hate this place! We want to go back to running free wherever we want.” She glared at the wire mesh of the pen.
“Do you have to take naps?” Sir Walter asked.
White Tip said, “We like naps in our den. It’s warm and safe.”
Sir Walter’s head tipped to one side as he considered this. “What is safe?”
“Safe is when no one is chasing us — hunting us,” Bibby replied.
“Who does that . . . and why?” asked Sir Walter.
White Tip stretched out, crossed her front paws, and spoke. “In the woods, we take care of ourselves. But humans hunt us. I don’t know why. Sometimes a bobcat or a wolf eats a fox.
“A monster on the hard place killed our mother. She just lay on the hard place and died. We were hiding, and we watched. Humans are inside those monsters, and we hate them.”
“White Tip means roads,” Milly explained. “The monsters are trucks like Grampa’s, or cars, like the one I was in before they threw me out. I hate cars, too.”
“We have a road,” Sir Walter said. “Way up there at the end of our lane! Cars and trucks go by every day.”
“Yes, and we DO NOT GO UP THERE!” Ernest bellowed.
“No need to shout!” Gabby flapped one wing in front of his snout.
“He’s right,” Bibby said. “We’re afraid of the road place. Foxes are fast, but not fast enough to outrun a car-monster.”
“I have heard that foxes are one of the fastest wild things,” Milly said. “I see them in our woods, but they won’t speak to me.”
“Tell me more about being wild,” said Sir Walter.
Ernest felt a quiet satisfaction. The puppy was being a perfect host, showing interest in their boarders.
The fox sisters stared at the puppy. “Look at us! We are wild,” said White Tip. “We are free! You live with a human who is in charge of everything.”
Bibby added, “We go where we want, when we want, eat when we please —”
“If you can find something to eat,” Ernest grunted.
“That part is hard,” agreed White Tip. “Our mother died before we learned how to hunt.”
Milly shuddered, causing her marmalade fur to ripple from her shoulders to her tail. “I would be afraid all the time,” she said. “When I’m hunting in the pastures, big hawks circle above me, acting like they want to come down and get me. I hunt, but Grampa feeds me anyway. Tuna fish is delicious.”
“My mother died, too,” Sir Walter told the foxes. “Right after I was born. Grampa is my mother. But being wild sounds exciting . . . and fun!”
With a loud clack of her beak, Gabby said, “I remember being wild. Way, way back there. Now I live here, and let me tell you, this is easier.”
In the distance, a bell rang. “Oh, good,” Sir Walter said. “Supper!” To the foxes he said, “I’ll be back. And don’t worry. Grampa always sends animals home.”
On their way to the house, Gabby and Milly complimented Sir Walter on his behavior with the foxes. “Grampa would be so proud of you!”
Ernest plodded along in the rear, vaguely disturbed, but not knowing why.
Supper that evening was a party because AnnaLee stayed to eat with them. She had brought a huge meat loaf — enough for tasty leftovers — made by her mother as a gift for Grampa.
“Might as well put some on everyone’s plate,” he told AnnaLee. Gabby got a red pear, because she never ate meat. While they all enjoyed their meals, Grampa and AnnaLee visited.
“Doc, that Zeus goose is not looking good.”
“Yup, I know. Of course, it’s only the second day,” he said, dropping his fork on the plate with a clatter. “I think this one is pining for his mate.”
“So our goose needs his girlfriend?”
“She wouldn’t be just a girlfriend. She’d be his soul mate. If one in a pair of Canada geese is sick, the other one stays right there and won’t leave. If one dies, the other one can pine away and die, too, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s how I felt when I lost my wife. For a long time, I didn’t think I could live without the other half of me.”
AnnaLee gazed out the window into the dark. “That’s so sad. But somehow you waited it out. Will the goose know how to do that?”
“I doubt it. Birds rely on instinct to tell them what to do. Our goose has a cage around him, and human beings. It’s all foreign, so he won’t get much help from his instincts.”
AnnaLee reached for her thick red ponytail and began chewing on its end.
“I thought you quit that. Your mom said she had you cured.”
“She keeps trying. But I go back to it when I’m upset.”
“Well, you should prepare yourself, because we might not win this fight. Our goose needs to hang on a few more days, till I get enough antibiotic into him to kill any infection. Then we’ll take him back to his pond.”
Grampa leaned toward her. “Pass that meat loaf, AnnaLee. I need to keep my spirits up.”
While the people lingered over dinner, Ernest — his stomach full and happy — dozed on his pile of blankets. Gabby snoozed on her curtain rod, and Milly curled in a ball on Grampa’s lap, waiting for him to carry her up to bed.
Sir Walter lay in his basket. He had trampled the red Scotch blanket into proper position, yet he was still awake, eyes bright. The idea of being wild had enchanted his puppy heart.
THE WILD ANIMALS had been at the Bed and Biscuit several days before life settled into a new routine. Right after breakfast, Milly and Gabby checked on the goose while Ernest and Sir Walter visited the foxes and Old Man Musky.
On day five, Grampa removed the wide collar from around the muskrat’s neck and replaced the bandage on his foot with a slim wrapping.
“Look,” cried Sir Walter. “He’s eating!”
Ernest and Sir Walter watched the muskrat greedily shovel in the fish, crayfish, and greenery Grampa had put in his cage.
When the puppy barked to get Old Man Musky’s attention, the muskrat growled, “Get rid of the dog!”
On their way to the foxes’ pen, Sir Walter said, “That muskrat hates me.”
“He just doesn’t know that you won’t hurt him. Wild animals often fear dogs as enemies. It’s one of their wild instincts that helps them to stay alive.”
“Do I have instincts?” Sir Walter asked.
“Of course. You know how you like to dig . . . and dig . . . and dig? And how you chase things and sometimes pounce on them? Those are dog instincts. Now, think about pigs. We never pounce on anything.”
By this time they had reached the foxes’ pen. “Hi! We’re back!” said Sir Walter, bouncing like a toy on a spring.
Inside their pen, the kits cleaned their white muzzles after breakfast.
“I do that, too,”
the puppy said. He ran his pink tongue over the black whiskers around his mouth. “It must be a canine instinct,” he said, proud of his new knowledge. “I love eating. I could eat all day long.”
“At home, we eat whenever we want,” said White Tip.
“Whenever we catch something,” Bibby added. “We always catch the mice that the human leaves for us. It’s easy.”
“That’d be fun, like a game . . . except . . . mice are yucky.”
“Are not!” snapped White Tip. “Mice and moles and shrews are good, especially the little ones! And we eat berries, too —”
Bibby interrupted. “We need to go home now. Just open that door before the human comes back. We’ll be fine!”
“Grampa will take you to a good place in the woods very soon,” Ernest said. “For now, just eat and rest. Come along, Sir Walter.” He nudged the puppy toward the office.
“But I want to talk to them! Just a little while. I promise!”
Reluctantly, Ernest left and went to the office, where Milly and Gabby told him that the goose was now drinking water. “Grampa is so happy that he’s whistling again,” Gabby added.
“What he needs to do is sit down so I can be in his lap where I belong,” Milly said.
“Come on out here, and leave that goose alone!” Grampa called. Whistling contentedly, he sat down at his desk. Milly jumped up onto his lap as Grampa opened a drawer and reached for his phone.
Flapping fast, Gabby zoomed his way. “My phone!” she squawked, lighting on the desk and grabbing for the receiver.
Grampa stroked her head. “Feeling deprived, are you? Missing your little chats with folks in Vienna and Rome?”
“Bad man! Bad man!” said Gabby, who loved her games with the phone. For weeks she had randomly pecked buttons and waited to hear whether a voice would speak to her out of the receiver. If it did, she chatted as long as someone on the other end would talk.
After a couple of strange phone bills, Grampa had figured out what was going on. Later he learned that Gabby also answered calls when he was not there. She always pretended to be Dr. Adam Bender, of course.
One time, instead of saying, “Bed and Biscuit, how can I help you?” she had said, “Hotsy-Totsy Pet Hotel. This is Hotsy,” followed by a loud cackle.
When Grampa heard about that — plus a few other sassy comments — he moved the telephone into a desk drawer. Gabby still had not forgiven him.
As Grampa and Gabby wrestled for control of the phone, Sir Walter charged in. Panting from his run, he said, “The foxes like me now. I explained about instincts and they think I’m smart.”
“Is that so? Then they must be happier,” Ernest observed.
“Oh, no! They need to go home. They’re ready.”
Ernest gave the puppy a look laden with meaning. “Grampa will decide when they go home. Is that clear?”
“But they said —”
“They’re just babies, too young to decide what’s best —”
Gabby hooted. “Hear ye, hear ye! The Right Honorable Lord Ernest Piglet —”
“Nobody asked you!” Ernest thundered, which made Grampa get up from his chair. Milly hopped to the floor, where she turned and gave Grampa a withering look.
“Ah, Milly-baby, I’m sorry,” Grampa said, bending down to pick her up. “The rest of you, just toddle on out of here. I need to finish these accounts in peace. You can argue just as well out in the yard. And stay there, hear me?”
That day, Grampa lay down on the family-room sofa after lunch. Ernest felt that he, too, should rest. I have to watch that puppy all day — do this; don’t do that — on duty every second. He heaved a sigh and fell sound asleep.
Hearing his snores, Milly woke from her nap in the kitchen chair and moved into Ernest’s bed, snuggling warmly against his back. Gabby settled on the back of the kitchen chair for her snooze.
While everyone slept, Sir Walter slipped out for a visit with the foxes.
BY MIDAFTERNOON that day, Grampa had decided to try something different. With the caged goose in a wheelbarrow, he led his family to their most spacious outdoor pen. “You’re going to be a new man out here,” Grampa promised the big male goose.
Zeus turned his head majestically from side to side, taking in the scenery, as Grampa undid the padlock on the pen. “Ahnnnnk,” Zeus sighed.
Only Grampa went into the pen with the goose. “Get ready,” he told everyone waiting outside the pen. “I’ll bet this goose is six feet, wing tip to wing tip. I may have to hightail it out of here!”
Released from his cage, Zeus stood up and tentatively flexed his wings. Up. Down. Up. Down. He looked around and then squatted in the grass, wings folded. Motionless, he stared off into space.
Ernest slumped down, too. Next to him sat Milly and Sir Walter, and no one made a sound. Even Gabby was temporarily silenced.
Grampa’s happy smile sagged as he contemplated the unmoving bird. “Well, dang anyway!” In frustration he took his cap off and put it back on several times. “I’d have bet anything . . .”
Gabby leaned forward, gripping Ernest’s head so that she didn’t fall off. “You! Goose!” she shrilled. “Shake your tail! Swim! Eat! Flap wings!”
She paused. “You put your right wing in; you put your right wing out —”
Grampa had to laugh. “Nice try, Gabby. Okay, folks, we did all we could. Let’s leave him alone . . . see how he does when we’re not around.”
“Claws!” Ernest grunted. “Right now!”
Gabby let go and flew over to the goose’s pen. When the others trudged back to the office, she stayed behind.
In the office, Grampa picked up Old Man Musky’s cage. “I sure hope you like your new quarters better than our goose likes his,” he told the muskrat. He snipped off the thin bandage on the muskrat’s foot, and once again the family paraded outdoors.
The muskrat began a loud, nervous squealing.
Ernest went wrunk-wrunk in a reassuring way, Milly mewed encouragement, Sir Walter barked, and Grampa made soothing sounds.
Unhooking the gate latch, Grampa told the muskrat, “You’re going to love it here. Dozens of ducklings have grown to adulthood in this pond and gone on to great things.” He set the muskrat’s cage in a corner, and scooted everyone out of the enclosure before opening the cage door.
Right away, Old Man Musky waddled out of his cage. He favored the wounded foot slightly as he moved around his pen, blinking in the sunlight and snuffling the grass and low bushes. He paused at the lip of the concrete pond, which looked like a midsize, round swimming pool.
Ernest eyed the muskrat’s right hind foot, now free of its bandage. Where Grampa had removed the infected portion, there was a row of tiny, neat stitches.
Old Man Musky waded into the deep center of the pond and began to swim gingerly. His head high, he made a different sound — a low snort-snort.
Grampa broke open a bale of straw and put some in the muskrat’s cage, leaving its door open so that it could be a sleeping den. “You can do your own decorating with the rest of the bale,” he said before heading back to the office.
“That looks like fun,” said Sir Walter, watching the old animal paddle across the pond.
“You’d be good at it,” Ernest told him. “Dogs are natural swimmers.”
“More of my instincts?”
“That dog asks a lot of questions!” boomed Old Man Musky.
Startled by the muskrat’s sudden speech, Ernest said, “Yes, he does, because he’s interested in you. We all are! Please tell us about yourself.”
“If you insist,” grumbled the muskrat, yet he paddled to the edge of the pond right away. “I shall begin with my birth,” he said in a solemn tone. “I was the biggest kit in my litter of nine. I got the most milk from our mother and I’m proud of it. The muskrat world is tough and only the tough survive — and the fast swimmers who can escape the mink and otters who hunt us.
“We live by water, you know — burrowing into the banks of streams and ponds. I
remember one time the mink came to our end of the pond . . .” He rambled on, noting which muskrat had hidden in which burrow, until Milly yawned.
“Am I boring you?” asked Old Man Musky.
“No, no!” Ernest said heartily. “It’s just that we promised to help Grampa . . . uh . . . now. But I’ll be back. Yessir!”
On their way home Milly said, “If Grampa only knew what we do for the boarders. You can listen to that animal all you want, but count me out!”
“Me, too,” said Sir Walter. “I’ll talk to the foxes. They have great stories, and nobody ever tells them what to do!”
“You don’t say,” Ernest replied coolly. He felt that his job as a parent had just gotten harder. The fact is, he thought, a good parent does tell his child what to do. I warn against danger or bad influences. That’s my job.
His face wrinkled in thought, Ernest said, “I’m coming with you.”
Bibby was waiting for them, her black nose wedged between the fencing wires. “Why are we kept in this trap?” she asked the puppy. “We’re not sick.”
White Tip joined her sister. “Would you want to be stuck in here?”
Ernest listened intently, looking from the puppy to the foxes.
“I know what you mean about running free,” said Sir Walter, “so I’d hate it.” He paused. “At least the food’s good here.”
“Food is not enough,” said White Tip.
Ernest saw Sir Walter nod slowly, thoughtfully, his eyes fixed on White Tip. Ernest gave the puppy a determined shove with his snout and said, “We must be getting on.”
“But —” Sir Walter began.
“No arguing,” Ernest said. “Soon they’ll be back where they want to be. Only this time they’ll be healthy and strong. Now we are going.”
On the way back to the house, they passed Zeus’s outdoor cage. Gabby was still there, gazing off into space, looking discouraged.