The Hares and the Foxes

The hares had gone to war with the eagles. It was not going well. Every morning a shadow slid across the field. Every morning the hares ran for their holes. And every morning there were fewer of them.

So they held a meeting in the long grass, with their ears down. "We need friends," said the oldest hare. "We need friends with sharp teeth and clever heads."

"The foxes!" said the others. "Let us ask the foxes!"

That evening they crept to the edge of the wood. A long red nose came out of a hole, and then another. "Dear foxes," said the hares, all shaking, "we are at war. Will you help us?"

The foxes looked at the hares. They looked up at the eagles, wheeling over the hill. They looked at the hares again.

"We would gladly have helped you," said the oldest fox, "if we had not known who you were, and who you were fighting."