The Tides of Avarice by John Dahlgren

agreed Sylvester, “although they can see real well underground, they tell us.”
    â€œAnd this mother mole was no exception to the rule. All she could make out through the dim, fuzzy mists of her vision was that her spotty, little brat, wot had been right next to her but a moment before, was now bruised and battered on the far side of the road. What the great racket of creaking wheels and galloping hooves and cursing coachmen had been all about, she had no strong-founded opinion, having noticed nuttin of the cart going by. All she could be a-thinkin’ of was that some great gallumpher – meaning me in case you’s not been paying proper attention – had grabbed her horrible little progeny.”
    Fourfeathers took a deep breath, as if forcing himself to remember something he’d tried to banish into the black vaults of oblivion at the back of his mind.
    â€œShe advanced upon me, she did,” he said. “Wrathfully.”
    â€œOn the warpath, was she?” prompted Sylvester.
    â€œOn more than just the one warpath. She had a whole spaghetti junction of them.” The fox’s lips had gone white and his eyes rolled in their sockets. “She thought I was attackin’ of her firstborn, she did, and there ain’t no fury like a mother mole’s when she be havin’ her dander up.”
    â€œYes, but your leg. How did you hurt it?”
    â€œI’m getting there. Patience, youth.”
    â€œAh, sorry, Mr. Fourfeathers.”
    â€œPicture the scene. Me a-lyin’ there in the dust. The little mole a-bawlin’ his guts out, and of course not a-tellin’ his mommy that he was the one had been a blithering banana running out in the way of the cart like that. And Mamma Mole vengeful as a scorpion whose toe you trod on. She, she …”
    It seemed Fourfeathers was at a loss for words to describe the full ghastliness of what happened to him next.
    Sylvester glanced ahead of them down the quiet lane to which he’d been guiding their footsteps. Doctor Nettletree’s snug little house was not far now.
    â€œTell me,” he said. “You’ll feel better once you’ve gotten it off your chest.”
    Fourfeathers heaved yet another enormous sigh. “I wouldn’t be a-tellin’ of just anyone, young fellow-me-lad,” he replied. “But you’ve already earned yourself a place in me heart, you have, and I reckon I can trust thee. So, the next thing was—say, you won’t be a-spreadin’ of this all over town, will you?”
    Sylvester assured him that it would be the strictest of secrets between them, and that he hoped the Great Lemming Spirit Lhaeminguas would strike him dead where he stood should he ever breathe a word of it to any other living soul (all the while resolving to tell Viola the best and juiciest details at the first possible opportunity).
    â€œWell, what happened next,” said Fourfeathers heavily, “was that Mamma Mole picked up me very own leg and started a-beatin’ me over the head with it.”
    â€œShe what?”
    The fox nodded confirmation. “I ain’t never seen it done afore,” he added dolefully. “And I hopes, as sure as I be a-limpin’ here, that I don’t ever see it again. But that’s exactly what she did.”
    Sylvester did his best not to giggle at the images cavorting across his mental gaze.
    â€œThat sounds, well, dreadful.”
    â€œIt was, and the worst of it was, as I discovered when she’d swept off with her brat under her arm, the inconsiderate besom had sprained me ankle where she’d been a-grippin’ it with what to belabor me, see?”
    â€œI think I’ve got a frog in my throat.”
    â€œThat all you can be a-sayin’, young Master Sylvester, to this tale of tragedy?”
    â€œSomething in my eye too.”
    â€œPerhaps that be tears of sympathy?”
    â€œPerhaps. Oh, look, we’re at Doc