Full half success for Fox or Man    Is won by working out a plan.
     —Old Granny Fox.
Granny Fox knows this. No one knows it better. Whatever she does is first carefully planned in her wise old head. So now after she had decided that she and Reddy would try for one of Farmer Brown's fat hens, she lay down to think out a plan to get that fat hen. No one knew better than she how foolish it would be to go over to that henyard and just trust to luck for a chance to catch one of those biddies. Of course, they might be lucky and get a hen that way, but then again they might be unlucky and get in a peck of trouble.
 
“You see,” said she to Reddy, “we must not only plan how to get that fat hen, but we must also plan how to get away with it safely. If only there was some way of getting in that henhouse at night, there would be no trouble at all. I don't suppose there is the least chance of that.”
 
“Not the least chance in the world,” replied Reddy. “There isn't a hole anywhere big enough for even Shadow the Weasel to get through, and Farmer Brown's boy is very careful to lock the door every night.”
 
“There's a little hole that the hens go in and out of during the day, which is big enough for one of us to slip through, I believe,” said Granny thoughtfully.
 
“Sure! But it's always closed at night,” snapped Reddy. “Besides, to get to that or the door either, you have got to get inside the henyard, and there's a gate to that which we can't open.”
 
“People are sometimes careless,—even you, Reddy,” said Granny.
 
Reddy squirmed uneasily, for he had been in trouble many times through carelessness. “Well, what of it?” he demanded a wee bit crossly.
 
“Nothing much, only if that hen-yard gate should happen to be left open, and if Farmer Brown's boy should happen to forget to close that little hole that the hens go through, and if we happened to be around at just that time—”
 
“Too many ifs to get a dinner with,” interrupted Reddy.
 
“P............