all know that, yet most of us are just foolish enough to make such a
wish now and then. I guess you have done it. I know I have. Peter Rabbit
has done it often and then laughed at himself afterwards. I suspect that
even shrewd, clever old Granny Fox has been guilty of it more than
once. So it is not surprising that Reddy Fox, terribly hungry as he was,
should do a little foolish wishing.

When he left home to go to the Old Pasture, in the hope that he would
be able to find something to eat there, he started off bravely. It was
cold, very cold indeed, but his fur coat kept him warm as long as he
was moving. The Green Meadows were glistening white with snow. All the
world, at least all that part of it with which Reddy was acquainted, was
white. It was beautiful, very beautiful, as millions of sparkles flashed
in the sun. But Reddy had no thought for beauty; the only thought he had
room for was to get something to put in the empty stomachs of himself
and Granny Fox.

Jack Frost had hardened the snow so that Reddy no longer had to wade
through it. He could run on the crust now without breaking through. This
made it much easier, so he trotted along swiftly. He had intended to go
straight to the Old Pasture, but there suddenly popped into his head
a memory of the shelter down in a far corner of the Old Orchard which
Farmer Brown's boy had built for Bob White. Probably the Bob White
family were there now, and he might surprise them. He would go there
first.

Reddy stopped and looked carefully to make sure that Farmer Brown's boy
and Bowser the Hound were nowhere in sight. Then he ran swiftly towards
the Old Orchard. Just as he entered it he heard a merry voice just over
his head: "Dee, dee, dee, dee!" Reddy stopped and looked up. There was
Tommy Tit the Chickadee clinging tightly to a big piece of fresh suet
tied fast to a branch of a tree, and Tommy was stuffing himself. Reddy
sat down right underneath that suet and looked up longingly. The sight
of it made his mouth water so that it was almost more than he could
stand. He jumped once. He jumped twice. He jumped three times. But all
his jumping was in vain. That suet was beyond his reach. There was no
possible way of reaching it save by flying or climbing. Reddy's tongue
hung out of his mouth with longing.

"I wish I could climb," said Reddy.

But he couldn't climb, and all the wishing in the world wouldn't enable
him to, as he very well knew. So after a little he starte