ut!

So she waddled down to the brook to get them. Then they all went for a
walk in the meadow where the red clover-tops nod in the wind, and Mamma
Goose did no more thinking that day.

But when night came, she did not forget her plan. As soon as the sun had
gone down behind the hill, the chickens all perched themselves along the
roost with the big white cock at the end of the row, and soon they were
all fast asleep. Little Red Hen gathered her chicks under her wing to
keep them cosy and warm, and then she, too, went to sleep.

Mamma Goose tucked her babies in also, and spread her wings wide over
them all, but she did not go to sleep.

Instead, she kept both eyes wide open and stared straight at the big
white cock, that she might not go to sleep without knowing it. It was
very hard to sit so long in the dark and keep awake. First one eye and
then the other would close tight, but Mamma Goose would stretch them
wide open again, and stare harder than ever at the big cock, and then
she saw that the cock was watching, too, and that made it much easier.

Then it happened after a long time, when the moon had climbed high above
the trees, and everything was very quiet, that a long, slim fox stole
softly beneath the fence and came creeping--creeping across the barn
yard. Mamma Goose was so frightened that she almost said "Quack! quack!"
out loud, but still she kept her eyes on the big white cock, and that
was a great help.

The fox was creeping softly toward the roost where the chickens slept in
a row,--but not straight toward it. He was keeping as far away from old
Fido's house as he possibly could. Although she was so frightened, Mamma
Goose wondered why. She had always heard that the fox was afraid of old
Fido, but didn't he know that Fido was far away? Didn't he know that his
little house was empty? It did not take the fox long, however, to creep
softly past it, and in the morning another little chick was gone!

But a new thought had come to Mamma Goose. If the fox would not go near
old Fido's house, then he could not find the goslings if they hid
inside. It seemed to Mamma Goose the only thing to do, and a very
sensible plan indeed. She would ask all the chickens to come in, too,
and then they would all be safe!

But when she went the next day to her best friends and told them about
her plan, most of them only made fun of her, and all of them turned
their backs on her. No one would listen!

But Mamma Goose was not