Mrs. Fox couldn't help Tommy at all. She stayed with him throughout
the night, and tried to comfort him. And she only left when morning
came and she smelled men coming across the fields. Then, with one last
sorrowful look at Tommy, she crept sadly away.

In a few minutes more Farmer Green and his boy Johnnie reached Mrs.
Fox's door. And they were both greatly pleased when they saw that the
trap had done its work so well.

"It's a young cub," Farmer Green said, as soon as he spied Tommy Fox.

"May I have him, Father?" Johnnie asked quickly. "I'd like him for a
pet."

Tommy Fox was terribly frightened when he heard that. You see, he
didn't know what a "pet" was. He thought that probably it was
something like a stew, for he had been told that people ate things
like that; and he could see himself, in his mind's eye, being cut up
and tossed into a pot.

"A pet, eh?" said Farmer Green. "Well, I suppose so. He's hardly worth
skinning. You may have him, I guess. But look out that he doesn't bite
you."

Johnnie Green was delighted. He helped his father put Tommy into an
old sack, and taking the trap too, they started toward the farm-house.
When they reached Farmer Green's home Johnnie and his father fitted a
stout collar about Tommy's neck. And they fastened one end of a chain
to it; and the other end they tied to a long stake, which they drove