42 pages • 1 hour read
Betsy ByarsThe Midnight Fox
Betsy ByarsFiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Search”
Over the following weeks, Tom looks for the black fox, walking through the woods and searching the peaceful ravine. One day, Tom is lying on his stomach on a sun-warmed rock when he sees the black fox run up the ravine and into the underbrush. Tom waits, sensing that she will be back. He passes the time by watching insects and birds. He even slips into a daydream about an old man who invents a flying machine. In the daydream, everyone dismisses the old man because airplanes already exist, but then he presses a button on his backpack and flies away, leaving everyone stunned and disappointed that they didn’t let him explain.
Suddenly, the fox interrupts Tom’s fantasy by returning with a frog in her mouth. She freezes when she sees Tom but simply cocks her head and looks at him with curiosity before continuing into the underbrush. Over the next few days, Tom searches for the fox’s den but only finds the nests of birds, hornets and chipmunks. He sees an old owl and a possum, but no fox. The following day, Tom goes to the creek instead of the ravine and sits beside the water, watching crayfish and schools of tiny fish. Suddenly, the black fox comes through the bushes, carrying a bird. She puts the bird down by a hole beside a rock and quietly barks. A tiny, wooly, stubby-nosed baby fox tumbles out of the hole and pounces on the bird. The black fox watches her baby wrestle the dead bird. When she hears a noise, she sends her baby back into the den while she keeps watch, then she runs into the woods, occasionally barking to draw any predators away from her den. Hazeline told Tom that foxes will move their den if they think it has been discovered, so he is careful not to leave any trace of his visit behind. He also decides never to go there again, regardless of how much he wants to see the cub. Tom etches a small mark on his suitcase every time he sees the fox. The day he sees her baby is the fourth mark. Over the following weeks, Tom makes 10 more marks, even though he sees her 11 more times.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Tragedy Begins”
Tom and Petie once made up a show called “This is your Bad Moment” (74), where contestants are filmed during their Bad Moment. For example, Petie loves pizza, so he would be filmed standing by a table covered in delicious pizza but before he could try one, 100 monkeys would enter and eat all the pizza, leaving him with none.
When Hazeline tells Tom to get his bathing suit on, Tom thinks that this is going to be his “bad moment.” He is relieved when she appears with two big innertubes. Mikey shows up while Tom and Hazeline are floating in the river. Laughing, Hazeline tries to get to a towel, but Mikey catches her and drops her back in the river. Tom laughs as Mikey and Hazeline have a good-natured water fight. He goes to bed that night with a “big smile” on his face. He is extremely happy and has no inkling that “something terrible” is about to happen with the black fox.
Chapter 12 Summary: “One Fear”
Two days later, over supper, Millie states that a fox killed her turkey and some hens. Millie is already irritated because of the stifling heat, so she badgers Fred, asking what he is going to do about the fox. Tom panics and suggests that maybe it wasn’t a fox that got the turkey, but Millie is already on her feet, ready to go. Tom suddenly feels the intense heat and has trouble breathing. Tom follows Fred, Millie, and their dog Happ to the empty turkey’s nest. Fred explains to Tom that the fox has taken the eggs and hidden them for winter storage. Fred suggests that they go and find them. Tom is gripped with fear “that something terrible was going to happen to the black fox” (84). Fred quickly finds where the fox buried the eggs and tells Tom, “It looks like you and I are going to have to do something about that fox” (84). Tom tries weakly to dissuade Fred, suggesting that the fox is already far away, but Fred is excited about the hunt. Tom feels his nose start to run.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
While Tom searches the woods and ravine for the fox, he discovers the joy of Connecting With Nature. He is excited to find many of the things that he once dismissed as uninteresting when he first saw them collected in Bubba’s room, such as nests and abandoned eggs. Now Tom understands why Bubba collected them, and he has a new appreciation for the beauty of such things. In his imagination, Tom finds ways to connect his urban experiences with farm life, and this dynamic is clear when he watches an ant carry a huge insect wing and has an imaginative daydream about a flying machine. Tom’s daydream speaks to the motif of negative consequences following superficial judgment, for if the people listened to the old man instead of arrogantly dismissing him, he would have shared his great invention. Tom’s contemplative moment watching the ant also echoes the last day he spent in the city with Petie, when they watched an ant run around on Petie’s sneaker, for Tom’s incorrect assumptions about rural life fueled his vehement belief that staying on a farm could not possibly be fun.
When Tom sees the black fox’s baby, he is overwhelmed with joy, but rather than choosing to satisfy his desire to see the fox cub again, he respectfully decides never to return to the den, thereby putting the safety of the fox and cub above himself. This decision illustrates Tom’s maturity and growing respect for nature. Seeing the fox cub and spending a joyful afternoon in the river with Hazeline and Mikey makes Tom so happy that he goes to bed smiling, even though he had no prior interest in wildlife and dreaded the river.
After these days full of wonderful experiences, Tom begins to appreciate the value of trying “something new.” The high spirits that Tom feels also creates a sharper contrast with the extreme low that he experiences when he learns that his beloved black fox is to be Fred’s hunting target. All of Tom’s fears and anxieties come crashing back to him as he realizes how much he loves the fox. He muses, “all those thirty-eight different fears put together were not as bad as this one fear I had right now—that something terrible was going to happen to the black fox” (84). Tom is unable to tell Fred or Millie how he feels about the fox because he has been raised to respect and show deference to adults, and he also understands that the fox has killed Millie’s turkey, and that Fred is excited about the fox hunt. Therefore, Tom follows along with the fox hunt, making half-hearted efforts to divert Fred but accepting the inevitable without speaking up. This section, therefore, demonstrates that he still has some inner development yet to go, for he will eventually find the courage to resolve the situation himself and save the life of the fox and her cub.
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By Betsy Byars
