When the sun began to set and the stars started to peek at me, I felt the urge to step into the Forest of Dreams. Every day I would sit on my favourite rock, looking towards the tree line and thinking how nice it must be to jump, leap and bound around the forest.
You see, though I am Felix the Fox, I am not like other young foxes, who dare to put their head outside the burrow long before dusk has stolen upon us. No! I like to be snug and warm in my den with the rest of my family, who tell tales of all the adventures they have had jumping through the trees or running as fast as they can by moonlight.
Well, when it was twilight—the very best time for walking alone—I suddenly said:
“Oh! how I wish I could explore far in the Forest of Dreams!”
Before I had time to think a place that I had never seen before opened unexpectedly before me, half-hidden behind a spreading oak. As I went through, I looked around, but I was in such a nice little shady bower that it seemed a pity to go further, especially as my head was lightly crowned with beautiful ferns.
However, just as I was beginning to think of stepping back, I heard a distant and soft rustle above me, and there was an old owl looking at me. I promised myself that I would keep close to my mother and my auntie in the burrow from henceforth; but was glad I had had the chance of seeing such a beautiful tree covered with strange, hanging plants.
“My dear child,” said the wise old owl, “what do you want?”
“Oh! what would I give,” I cried, “to be a brave explorer, like my auntie and uncle!”
“You shall be so, my child,” replied the owl gently.
And indeed she had no sooner spoken than I felt myself all at once older, braver, and far bigger than I had ever dreamed to be. Then, too, the moon rose revealing all the beauty of the Forest of Dreams, and pouring bright silver upon it.
But I would like you to imagine my surprise when I discovered that instead of being myself after all, I had turned into another young fox, who was already trotting calmly down the leafy aisle of the trees.
“How I wonder if this young fox is an explorer?” I thought to myself.
“Perhaps I am Felix the Fox more than I know!” And before I had gone far down the forest the moon burst out of a cloud, making everything much more bright and clear than before.
Alas! I saw that I was still only in a small and unknown patch of the great Forest of Dreams, away to the right of the great oak; for high up in the top of a tree I now saw a pair of moss-green eyes looking at me, and guess to whom they belonged? A crocodile, who was shivering in his element. And all around his feet were the fiercest fishes you ever saw trying to make their supper of him, while he himself could only stare up and hope the moonlight would continue.
Directly in front of me was the Gothic bower that you see in paintings about kings and queens. For this bower was made neither of wood nor bricks, but was drawn by art into being, in quite a ghost small inch of lace.
How smart and bright every place was throughout the Forest of Dreams! I walked on thinking of these things, but alas! as the ancient Scottish proverb has it, it is ill wandering far after the vanities of life. For as I was gazing about I felt my paws lifting themselves far off the ground. You see here how very sleepy I am already, after wandering about in the middle of the Caterpillar Wood the greater part of the night. If I tell you what happened in this place to-night, you will be good enough to remember I have already begun to feel very sleepy indeed. Well, then, I was close to my nose when suddenly I stepped on on the springy bracken instead of moss; at least I think so.
But before I had jumped aside my wise old friend the owl flew down, who could tell tales of hundreds upon hundreds of years, and indeed was contemporary with Mother Earth and Father Sky. He too was much troubled.