The Little Fox Quotes

When Slim, the hired man who spends his spring and summer months working on the Pennsylvania farm owned by eight-year-old Benjy’s father, must head south for the winter, he entrusts his tame fox Goldie to the young Amish boy.

But despite his careful attention, Goldie escapes one winter night, and is not seen for some time. When she returns, she has a surprise for Benjy, and eventually, for Slim...

“Cold had come all right; you could see it as well as feel it. He turned quickly and trotted for the barn, eyeing the lower meadow as he went, dark-patched with ironweed, where the little frame chicken house stood looking shabby and frail.”

Delighted at this opportunity to care for an animal he has come to love, Benjy is diligent in performing his new duties.

It features a fox - the depiction of foxes in children’s books being an interest of mine - but in the end, I found that the foxy content was minimal, and that Goldie might just as easily have been another kind of wild animal, for all the difference it makes to the story.

A Pennsylvania Amish boy wonders if the fox raised on his farm misses other foxes and gets his answer when the animal leaves long enough to have a litter.

“Killing frost came that night. Came early, for his father announced, “Eighteen already!′ looking through the window at the outside thermometer where the light fell in it. Benjy listened with the others.

“With old Slim gone what would become of Goldie the little fox that Slim had found as a cub on the hill last spring, and tamed? Slim came every spring but he never failed to leave when the weather grew cold.”

“Benjy, trotting toward the barn now, knew that Slim must have felt the wind’s blustering in the night, felt it shake his frail little place as the wood in his stove turned to ash too soon.”

“Benjy’s heart sank. Elam Zook wanted Goldie, too! He often said he wished she were his. The Zook farm lay to the west of his father’s, and Elam saw Goldie when he came over to play with Benjy and his brothers.”