But I have forgotten my beautiful fox.  Jacko continued to deport himself well until the young chickens came; he was actually cured of the fox vice of chicken-stealing.  He used to go with me about the coops, pricking up his ears in an intelligent manner, and with a demure eye and the most virtuous droop of the tail.  Charming fox!  If he had held out a little while longer, I should have put him into a Sunday-school book.  But I began to miss chickens.  They disappeared mysteriously in the night.  I would not suspect Jacko at first, for he looked so honest, and in the daytime seemed to be as much interested in the chickens as I was.  But one morning, when I went to call him, I found feathers at the entrance of his hole, —­chicken feathers.  He couldn’t deny it.  He was a thief.  His fox nature had come out under severe temptation.  And he died an unnatural death.  He had a thousand virtues and one crime.  But that crime struck at the foundation of society.  He deceived and stole; he was a liar and a thief, and no pretty ways could hide the fact.  His intelligent, bright face couldn’t save him.  If he had been honest, he might have grown up to be a large, ornamental fox.

V

THE BOY’S SUNDAY

Sunday in the New England hill towns used to begin Saturday night at sundown; and the sun is lost to sight behind the hills there before it has set by the almanac.  I remember that we used to go by the almanac Saturday night and by the visible disappearance Sunday night.  On Saturday night we very slowly yielded to the influences of the holy time, which were settling down upon us, and submitted to the ablutions which were as inevitable as Sunday; but when the sun (and it never moved so slow) slid behind the hills Sunday night, the effect upon the watching boy was like a shock from a galvanic battery; something flashed through all his limbs and set them in motion, and no “play” ever seemed so sweet to him as that between sundown and dark Sunday night.  This, however, was on the supposition that he had conscientiously kept Sunday, and had not gone in swimming and got drowned.  This keeping of Saturday night instead of Sunday night we did not very well understand; but it seemed, on the whole, a good thing that we should rest Saturday night when we were tired, and play Sunday night when we were rested.  I supposed, however, that it was an arrangement made to suit the big boys who wanted to go “courting” Sunday night.  Certainly they were not to be blamed, for Sunday was the day when pretty girls were most fascinating, and I have never since seen any so lovely as those who used to sit in the gallery and in the singers’ seats in the bare old meeting-houses.