fields were those of a thoroughly bad and
unscrupulous fox that lived only too near.

The chief indwellers of the swamp were Molly and Rag. Their nearest
neighbors were far away, and their nearest kin were dead. This was their
home, and here they lived together, and here Rag received the training
that made his success in life.

Molly was a good little mother and gave him a careful bringing up. The
first thing he learned was 'to lay low and say nothing.' His adventure
with the snake taught him the wisdom of this. Rag never forgot that
lesson; afterward he did as he was told, and it made the other things
come more easily.

The second lesson he learned was 'freeze.' It grows out of the first,
and Rag was taught it as soon as he could run.

'Freezing' is simply doing nothing, turning into a statue. As soon as he
finds a foe near, no matter what he is doing, a well-trained Cottontail
keeps just as he is and stops all movement, for the creatures of the
woods are of the same color as the things in the woods and catch the eye
only while moving. So when enemies chance together, the one who first
sees the other can keep himself unseen by 'freezing' and thus have all
the advantage of choosing the time for attack or escape. Only those who
live in the woods know the importance of this; every wild creature and
every hunter must learn it; all learn to do it well, but not one of them
can beat Molly Cottontail in the doing. Rag's mother taught him this
trick by example. When the white cotton cushion that she always carried
to sit on went bobbing away through the woods, of course Rag ran his
hardest to keep up. But when Molly stopped and 'froze,' the natural wish
to copy made him do the same.

* * * * *

But the best lesson of all that Rag learned from his mother was the
secret of the Brierbrush. It is a very old secret now, and to make it
plain you must first hear why the Brierbrush quarrelled with the beasts.

_Long ago the Roses used to grow on bushes that had no thorns. But
the Squirrels and Mice used to climb after them, the cattle used to
knock them off with their horns, the Possum would twitch them off
with his long tail, and the Deer, with his sharp hoofs, would break
them down. So the Brierbrush armed itself with spikes to protect
its roses and declared eternal war on all creatures that climbed
trees, or had horns, or hoofs, or long tails. This left the