Читать книгу The Sins of Silvertip the Fox онлайн

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The visitor was Tommy Peele. And his old dog Watch said he owned the Woods and Fields. Now did that mean he owned the Woodsfolk who lived in them? That’s what everyone wanted to know. For the Woodsfolk were wild. Could a wild beast ever belong to any one? Doctor Muskrat had never heard of such a thing.

“I certainly wouldn’t mind,” chirped Chewee the Chickadee. “I get a full crop ’most every time I see him.”

“I guess you’d mind if he locked you up like he did Nibble,” remarked Chaik Jay. “That’s what it means to belong to him.”

“No, it doesn’t,” contradicted Nibble. (He really knew more about the little boy than any one else. He hadn’t liked being locked up, but he did like Tommy.) “Watch says I belong to him just the same out of my cage as I did in it. And he feeds me just the same, too.”

“Hmm!” sniffed Doctor Muskrat. He was wondering if it was that way with traps. ’Cause you remember Tommy’d caught him in one, and then let him go again. And Tommy’d fed him, too.

“You know,” said Nibble, “all the beasts up at the barn say——” And then for the first time he heard the swishing in the bulrushes behind him.