The fox went for a walk. Suddenly a hunter happened to see him and his dog began to chase the fox: The fox ran as fast as he could and barely made it into the shelter of his burrow. In the burrow, out of danger, the fox called his limbs to account.

"Eyes, what did you do when I was fleeing?"

The eyes said,

"We kept looking ahead of us to see how far the burrow, was." Then he asked his ears, "Ears, what did you do when I was fleeing?"

The ears replied,

"We kept listening how far off the dog was."

Then he asked the nose, "Nose, what did you do when I was fleeing?"

The nose answered,

"I kept sniffing if the dog was losing ground."

The fox then demanded of his legs, "Legs, what did you do when I was fleeing?"

The front legs said,

"We kept pulling and pulling."

The hind legs said,

"We kept pushing and pushing, and so we saved you from the hunter."

Then the fox asked his body, "Body, what did you do when I was fleeing?"

The body replied,

"I kept stretching forward all the time."

At last the fox asked his tail, "Tail, what good did you do when I was fleeing?"

The tail replied, "I swished from behind one tree to behind another, all the time swishing and swirling, this way and that way, so that the dog nearly caught you."

The fox got very angry with his tail. He put it out of the hole and said, "Here you are, dog, you can have my tail."

The dog pulled the tail together with the fox out of the burrow and they both were soundly tousled by him.

David Bocchi

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