A dinner is far better lost Than eaten at too great a cost.
Bowser the Hound.
Can you imagine Reddy Fox with a chicken dinner right before him and not touching it? Well, that is just what happened in Farmer Brown's henhouse. It wasn't because Reddy had no appetite. He was hungry, very hungry. He always is in winter. Then it doesn't often happen that he gets enough to eat at one meal to really fill his stomach. Yet here he was with a chicken dinner right before him, and he didn't touch it.
 
You see it was this way: Reddy's wits were working very fast there in Farmer Brown's henhouse. He knew that he had only a forlorn chance of escaping when Farmer Brown's boy should come to open the henhouse in the morning. He knew that he must make the most of that forlorn chance. He knew that freedom is a thousand times better than a full stomach.
 
On one of the lower roosts sat a fat hen. She was within easy jumping distance. Reddy knew that with one quick spring she would be his. If the henyard gate had been open, he would have wasted no time in making that one quick spring. But the henyard gate, as you know, was closed fast.
 
"I'm awfully hungry," muttered Reddy to himself, "but if I should catch and eat that fat hen, Farmer Brown's boy would be sure to notice the feathers on the floor the very minute he opened the door. It won't do, Reddy; it won't do. You can't afford to have the least little thing seem wrong in th............