One of the first things that the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows who hunt other little people learn is patience . Sometimes it takes a long time to learn this , but it is a necessary lesson . Reddy Fox had learned it . Reddy knew that often even his cleverness would not succeed without patience . When he was young he had lost many a good meal through impatience . Reddy could not remember when he had been more hungry than he was now . Lying there behind the fallen tree , watching the fat hens walking about unsuspectingly just a little way from him , it seemed to him that he simply must rush out and catch one of them . But Reddy was smart enough to know that if he did this there would at once be such a screaming and squawking that some one would be sure to rush out from the farmhouse to find out what was going on . If he were discovered , there would be small chance for him to get another fat hen . Reddy is keen enough to make the most of an opportunity . He knew that if he could get one of these hens without frightening the others , he would have a chance to get another . He might have a chance to get several in this way . So , though he was so eager and so hungry , he made himself keep perfectly still , while he studied out a plan . By and by he stole ever so carefully around back of the barn to the cowyard . Some of those fat hens were scratching in the straw of the cowyard . Just outside the cowyard was a pile of old boards . Reddy crawled behind this pile of old boards and then crouched and settled himself to be patient . He knew that sooner or later one of those fat hens would be likely to come out of the cowyard . In this way he might be able to catch one without the others knowing a thing about it . Blacky the Crow sat in the top of a tall tree where he could see all that was going on .
Blacky was as impatient as XXXXX was patient .
Blacky Crow Forest Fox Meadows Reddy cowyard first people straw