Good evening and welcome to Dreamtime Stories with Jackie.
Thank you so much for choosing me to be with you tonight for your bedtime story.
I'm so delighted.
We are reading The Exciting Adventures of Old Granny Fox and last time we read chapter 23 and learned how Farmer Brown's boy forgot to close the gate to the hen house.
So snuggle down in your bed and take a big stretch and get those covers just the way you like them and get ready for chapter 24.
A Midnight Visit.
By those who when tis well agreed he'll try and try who would succeed old granny fox.
It seemed to ready as if time never had dragged so slowly as it did this particular night while he and granny fox waited until granny thought it would be safe enough to visit Farmer Brown's hen house and see if by any chance there was a way of getting in.
Ready tried not to hope too much.
Granny had found a way to get the gate to the hen yard left open but this would do them no good unless there was some way of getting into that hen house and this he very much doubted but if there was a way he wanted to know it and he was impatient to start but granny was in no hurry not that she wasn't just as hungry for a big fat hen as ready was but she was too wise and too clever and altogether too sly to run any risks.
There is nothing gained by being in too much of a hurry ready she said and often a great deal is lost in that way.
A fat hen will taste just as good a little bit later as it would right now and it will be foolish to go up to Farmer Brown's house until we are sure that everybody up there is asleep but to ease your mind I'll tell you what we will do.
We'll go where we can see Farmer Brown's house and we will watch until the last light winks out.
So they trotted to a point where they could see Farmer Brown's house and there they sat down to watch and wait.
It seemed to Ready that those lights never would wink out but at last they did.
Come on Granny he cried jumping up and down.
No not yet Ready not yet replied Granny.
We've got to give folks time to get sound asleep.
If we should get into that hen house those hens might make a racket and if anything like that is going to happen we want to be sure that the Farmer Brown family is fast asleep.
This was sound advice and Ready knew it so with a groan and a sigh he once more laid down on the snow to wait.
At last Granny arose stretched and looked up at the twinkling stars.
Come on she said it's time and led the way up back of the barn and around it they stole like two dark shadows and quite as noiselessly as shadows.
They heard Bowser the hound sighing in his sleep in his snug little dog house and grinned at each other.
Silently they stole over to the hen yard.
The gate was open just as Granny had told Ready it would be.
Across the hen yard they trotted swiftly straight to where more than once in the daytime they had seen the hens come out of the house through a little hole.
It was closed.
Ready had expected it would be.
Still he was dreadfully disappointed.
He gave it merely a glance.
I knew it wouldn't be any use he said to Granny in half a whine but Granny paid him no attention.
She went close to the hole and pushed gently against the little door that closed it.
It did not move.
Then she noticed that at one edge there was a tiny crack.
She tried to push her nose through it but the crack was too narrow.
Then she tried a paw.
A claw caught on the edge of the door and it moved ever so little.
Then Granny knew that that little door wasn't fastened.
Granny stretched herself flat on the and went to work.
First with one paw then with the other.
By and by she caught her claws in it just right again and it moved a wee bit more.
No,
Most certainly that door was not fastened and that crack was getting a little wider.
Oh why are you wasting your time there demanded Ready crossly.
We'd be better off hunting if we would have anything to eat this night.
Granny said nothing but kept on working.
She had discovered that this was a sliding door.
Presently the crack was wide enough for her to get her nose in and then she pushed and twisted her head this way and that.
The little door slowly slid back and when Ready turned around to speak to her again,
For he had had his back to her,
She was nowhere to be seen.
Ready just gaped and gaped foolishly.
There was no Granny Fox but there was a black hole where she had been working and from it came the most delicious smell,
The smell of hens.
Oh it seemed to Ready that his stomach fairly flopped over with longing.
He rubbed his eyes just to be sure that he was wide awake and then in a twinkling he was inside that hole himself.
Be still whispered old Granny Fox.
To be continued.
So come back soon and let's find out what happens to Granny and Ready inside the hen house.
Oh my.
So snuggle down in your bed and have a wonderful sleep.
This is Jackie sending you so many hugs.
Good night now.
