“_Doin’?_ why fer considerable of a spell back he’s bin hangin’ raoun’ my hen-roost an’ pickin’ off my brammys; thet’s what he’s bin doin’, ’n the _fust_ time I sot the trap I stuck it under some chaff in the hole yender in the hen-haouse jest arter the hens hed gone ter roost--cal’latin’ as haow I’d wait a spell, ’n then go ’n take it away. I thort that ’ud fetch him sure; but _thar_, deu yeu b’leeve, I heern thet feller cum’ sneakin’ along putty soon, ’n he cum’ raoun’ to t’other side ’n scairt all the hens aout the hole. I heern a great squawkin’, ’n I put fer the place ez tight ez I cud, ’n thar I see my best dorkin’ hen in the trap. Ef I’d only gyn the feller time, like’s not he’d a chawed off her leg, ’n lugged her off to his hole in the rocks yender. I tell ye, everybody araoun’ what’s got hens hez hed to take thet feller’s sass, ’n they’d orter be an end on’t. There’s old Reuben Scales, so poor he hain’t got a pa’r o’ pants teu his back, ’n dependin’ on his faowls fer his meat vittles; why, they tell me daown t’ the store thet he’s bin jest _cleaned right aout_, ’n hain’t got even a ha’r-backed pullet left. They ain’t no _gunni’_ nuther. Thet red-haired thief hez knabbed every tarnal pattridge ’n Bob White they iz.” And so he went on for half an hour, telling me all the various stratagems by which Reynard had outwitted him. “I set it thar in the pine woods in a bed of pine needles, with the ded rabbit hangin’ over it, ’n the next day I see by the scratched up dirt haow the feller hed jumped clean over the trap at a _lick_, ’n taken his rabbit on a fly. Yeu kin laff; but what I’m tellin’ ye is az true az preachin’. So yest’d’y I lit aout on a new idee, ’n set the trap on top a stump cluss teu a tree ’n covered it with leaves. I hung the bait on the tree higher up, ’n sez I, old feller, I’ve got ye naow, sez I. I left it thar. I went daown thar agin this mornin’, ’n I’ve _jest cum_ from thar. _No more fox fer me_; s’elp me gosh!” “Why,” I ask, “what was the matter down there, Nathan?” “Why, _blame my stogys_, ef the feller hadn’t gone ’n highsted the clog-stick on the end o’ the chain, ’n shoved it agin the pan, ’n sprung the trap on’t, ’n then stepped up and knabbed the bait. An’ I say thet enny feller what’s got brains enuff fer thet, I swaiou he’d oughter _live_ off’n um; ’n he _kin_ fer all _me_!” [Illustration: WINTER BROWSING.] It was too bad to have fooled old Nathan so; but then, you see, he had a big farm, and was awfully stingy with us boys, and never would let us set a rabbit snare on his place. He said it was “pesky _cruel_,” and seemed to prefer the more humane way of wounding them with shot, and breaking their necks afterward to end their sufferings. Nathan had kept very quiet about his little game. There really was a very sly fox in the neighborhood; but boys make good foxes too, sometimes. [Illustration: A JANUARY THAW.]