"Late again!" the third-grade teacher sternly said to little Ranger.
"It ain't my fault this time, Miss Russell. You can blame this 'un on my Daddy. The reason I'm three hours late is my Daddy sleeps naked!"
Now, Miss Russell had taught grammar school for thirty-some-odd years. Despite her mounting fears, she asked little Ranger what he meant by that.
Full of grins and mischief, and in the flower of his youth, little Ranger and trouble were old friends,...... but he always told her the truth.
"You see, Miss Russell, out at the farm we got this here low down fox. The last few nights, he done ate six hens.
Last night, when Daddy heard a noise out in the chicken pen, he grabbed his double barreled shot gun and said to my Ma, "That fox is back again... I'm a gonna git him!'' "Stay back," Daddy whispered to all us kids!
"My Daddy was naked as a jaybird -- no boots, no pants, no shirt! To the hen house he crawled, just like an Injun on the snoop. Then, he stuck that double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun through the window of the coop.
As he stared into the darkness, with a fox on his mind, our old hound dog, Rip, had done gone and woke up and comes sneaking up behind Daddy.
Then, as we all looked on, plumb helpless, old Rip done went and stuck his cold nose in my daddy's butt!"
"Miss Russell, we all been pluckin' chickens since three o'clock this mornin!