While the morning’s breakfast was devoured—with much smacking of lips, wagging of tails, and snapping of bones—Ereth made sure he went outside. Try as he might, he simply could not abide a meal with the foxes—neither the food they ate nor their manners—but had decided that they were not going to change. Protest was to no avail.
Once he sensed breakfast was done Ereth returned to the den. It was time for daily chores. Everybody knew exactly what to do—not that it ever went smoothly or without complaint. If Flip was supposed to tidy the bed, it almost never failed that Tumble or Nimble messed his work up. If Nimble was smoothing down the den floor, there was Tumble or Flip to track it up. Tumble, whose job was the removal of odd bits of bone and uneaten food, almost inevitably discarded something that the other two were saving.
“You’re nothing but a bunch of lazy-legged leeches,” Ereth would inform them hotly. “Why do you always have to be bothering and bickering with each other?”
The kits, who had grown used to the way Ereth talked and groused, paid little attention to him, except to laugh. But once when Tumble, in imitation, actually called Ereth “a pillow of potted porcupine,” Ereth was beside himself with indignation.
“You youngsters,” he yelled, “are nothing more than a tribe of disrespectful renegades. All of you should be turned out in the dead of winter to fend for yourselves, and then, maybe, maybe, your brains would grow as fast as your appetites and that would make the world a better place.”
The kits just laughed.
Once chores were done—and in the end they always did get done—they all went outside and began the daily search for the remaining unsprung traps.
The search began with a discussion as to what areas of the field they should investigate that day and how they should do it. There was even Dimwood Forest to consider.
Ereth, for one, was wary of the forest, fearful of what might be found there. While he was fairly certain the hunters had not returned to the field, Ereth could not be certain about the forest. The problem was, if the hunters had returned, there was no way of knowing if new traps had been set. Though he kept it to himself, Ereth had a distinct memory of the traps he’d seen under the cabin, the four additional spring traps and the one designed to catch a large animal alive.
From time to time Ereth contemplated going back to the log cabin on his own. Once there, it would be easy to determine if the humans had returned. The idea was appealing. Besides, he had not forgotten the salt.
Yet it was the presence of the salt that held Ereth back. He preferred to keep that a secret. Not that he believed that the foxes had any interest in it. In fact he was certain they would never understand his feelings for salt at all.
Over the next six days they did find traps, four in all. By Ereth’s reckoning, that meant—if the humans had spoken true—there were only two more to find.
In the afternoons, Ereth insisted that the kits take naps. This they did while he took a brief stroll back out to the grove of trees, where once again he satisfied his own appetite.
After nap time, there was dinner to fetch.
The hours after dinner were the best. Snug and warm beneath the ground, feeling safe, their bellies full, the kits settled down. Every night Ereth told the kits stories. Mostly they were about things he had done or heard about. What they loved most were the exploits of Ereth’s famous friend, Poppy. The kits loved the tales about the many battles she and Ereth had fought. With eyes wide and large ears erect, they paid close attention to them all. Indeed, they liked these stories so much, no one objected when Ereth repeated them, even though each time the porcupine told them they grew in length, facts, and complexity.
In turn, the foxes told stories about their mother and how she had hunted this or that creature. Though Ereth was not really interested, he listened patiently.
Not so pleasing for Ereth to hear were tales about Bounder, the foxes’ father. These stories seemed all alike to him, tales in which Bounder accomplished the most amazing feats with incredible strength and astonishing brilliance.
“He’s the smartest fox in the whole world,” Nimble assured Ereth, when the porcupine dared to question whether Bounder had once truly managed to open a steel lock on a certain farmer’s barn using only his teeth.
“How do you know it really happened?” Ereth asked.
“Because Dad told us, and what he says is true,” Tumble said, defiance in his voice.
“Do you think he’d lie to us?” Flip demanded.
“Snail sauce on snake saliva,” Ereth returned. “I was just asking.”
At night, when the young foxes were finally abed and Ereth was at peace, he sometimes thought about how different his life had become. How crowded. How busy.
From time to time, he also thought of his home and, in particular, of Poppy. It was a long while now since he had left his log. Ereth wondered if she ever puzzled as to what had happened to him. Did she miss him? Was she worried about him? Did she regret ignoring his birthday?
Just to think about such things made Ereth unhappy. “Better to be here,” he told himself. “At least the kits are beginning to appreciate me.”
Early one morning, when Ereth popped out of the den, he was startled to see two hunters walking about the field. Horrified, he watched as they moved along the trails the foxes had made. One by one they picked up the sprung traps and stowed them in a bag.
Ereth stayed to see if they would reveal the unsprung traps—or if they would put down
