Scout Emerson's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Scout woke before the sun and laid her plan out on the quilt. She set the berry jar beside a strip of dried meat she had saved from supper, a tin cup for brook water, and one of her mother's wool socks stuffed with cedar shavings so the smell would carry. Her mother had left again after breakfast, this time to help a neighbor with a calf. Scout had until noon. She wanted more than a berry from a flat palm today. She wanted the fox to come close and stay close. She packed everything into her coat pockets and walked past the willow stump without counting. At the shallow bend she did not hide behind the log. She sat on it. She began to undress, folding her clothes and stacking them on the log next to her. She sat on the log in her underclothes, feverish and excited to tame the fox. She fidgeted with a strip of cloth, and when she opened her eyes again she saw the fox watching from across the brook. She gave a devious grin.