42 pages • 1 hour read
Betsy ByarsThe Midnight Fox
Fiction | 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 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Stranger”
After supper, Aunt Millie takes Tom up to the old room of her son, Bubba, which is now Tom’s room for the summer. Bubba’s room has a shotgun on a rack, old bird nests, eggs, and a stuffed squirrel on the bookshelf. Tom finds rocks, bullets, and old coins in a shoebox, along with hunting clothes and bathing suits in the drawers. Millie points to an old tree with smooth branches by the window and tells Tom that her boys used to climb down the tree rather than using the stairs. She comments that Fred was supposed to nail the screens in, but Tom assures Millie that he won’t be climbing out the window because he is afraid of heights. Millie good-naturedly replies, “Don’t tell me. You’ll be out there first chance you get. I know!” (26). Tom feels so out of place that he is unable to eat his supper. He hides his sandwich in his pocket when Millie isn’t looking. Back in his room, he reminisces about the “Petie Burkis Special” (27) sandwich as he tries to eat Millie’s pimento-cheese sandwich.
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Black Fox”
For the first three days on the farm, Tom does not know what to do with himself. He walks by the pond, builds the two models that his mom packed, shadows Fred in the barn and Millie in the kitchen, makes boats out of leaves and twigs, and writes a long letter to Petie. The highlight of Tom’s day is the arrival of the mail truck and the expectation of a letter from Petie. When Petie’s letter finally arrives, it is short and funny and is written like a newspaper article, telling the story of Petie’s fall at the playground.
Tom finds a meadow by the creek where he enjoys watching butterflies, daydreaming, and writing letters to Petie. Suddenly, he looks up from his writing and sees a black fox leaping through the field. Tom is thrilled. He sits very still. The fox gets close to the grove of trees where Tom is sitting. Tom feels his hands shake and his heart pound. When the fox is 10 feet away, she sees him. She cocks her head, curls her tail, and stares at him. Tom thinks, “In all my life I never saw anything like that fox standing there with her pale golden eyes on me and this great black fur being blown by the wind” (35). The fox turns and bounds away, leaving Tom awestruck. He picks up his pencil and starts to write a P.S. on his letter to Petie about the fox but stops. Adding the fox as a P.S. does not capture the excitement that Tom feels. Instead, he imagines a newspaper with the simple headline “FOX!,” which he believes would be as powerful as his father’s old newspaper clipping that features the headline, “WAR!” However, even this idea does not capture Tom’s true excitement.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Hazeline”
Tom keeps his sighting of the black fox secret. He goes to talk with Millie’s daughter, Hazeline, who is sitting on the porch and waiting for her boyfriend. Hazeline is flipping through a bride magazine, complaining that all the models are thin and worrying that she will never fit into any of the dresses. She admits, “I am too fat for everything” (37). Tom changes the subject and asks Hazeline whether there are wild animals around the farm. She tells him there are foxes, deer, muskrats, and possums and launches into a long story about her father and brothers hunting possums. She then asks whether Tom wants to go hunting. Horrified, Tom says no and asks about trapping foxes. Hazeline tells Tom a story about their neighbor who recently trapped and shot a fox that had eaten his chickens. The neighbor then found the fox’s den and “got a stick of dynamite and blew it up and that was the end of the baby foxes” (41). Mikey, Hazeline’s boyfriend, arrives and shares a story about his grandfather luring foxes into rifle range by squeaking like a mouse. Millie interrupts and calls Tom inside to look at their books; she knows that he loves to read, but Tom does not like any of their books. Tom only likes to get his books from Petie, but he knows he has to choose one out of politeness, so he randomly picks The Lamb Who Thought He Was a Cat. Tom takes the book and sits by the creek, hoping to see the black fox again.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
When Tom arrives on the farm, his discomfort reflects the Contrast Between Urban and Rural Life, and his insecurities become apparent when he reaffirms his belief that he will hate this new lifestyle and will suffer negative judgements from Millie, Fred, and Hazeline. His initial activities, therefore, reflect his attempts to resurrect his lost routines as he spends his first few days building models, riding bikes, or hanging around the house instead of venturing out into the natural world that surrounds him. Tom’s need for a set, familiar routine is reflected in the fact that he is a self-confessed picky eater and choosy reader, as well as being afraid of heights. His reluctance for Embracing Growth Through New Experiences is also reflected in his conviction that these things about himself will never change. This inner discouragement is shown when he misses Petie, whom he idolizes, and compares everything at the farm negatively to an equivalent situation with Petie, even Millie’s pimento-and-cheese sandwich. Tom admits that he is not very “adaptable,” and he clings to this definition of himself and resists embracing new experiences with an open mind. Tellingly, Tom feels that his help is not needed on the farm, but he is still unable to relax because he is too busy worrying. Initially, the highlight of Tom’s day is waiting for a letter from Petie, and this mindset underscores his homesickness.
Despite his resistance to his current circumstances, the beauty of being surrounded by the natural world and its wildlife gradually creeps into Tom’s consciousness and builds on the theme of Connecting With Nature. While sitting in a meadow and writing to Petie, Tom notices all the butterflies and observes that the picturesque field is “a very nice place” (32). However, it is not until Tom sees the black fox that the exhilaration of being immersed in nature finally hits him. The unexpected encounter with the fearless black fox unlocks something new inside of Tom, freeing him from the constraints of caution and apprehension that urban life has instilled in him. He suddenly sees beauty in nature that is powerful enough to challenge the beauty that previously moved him in museums. In this moment, Tom’s reaction is so strong that he is unable to tell Petie about the fox in a letter, simply because he knows that the words would never be able to do the fox justice, and Tom does not want to diminish the fox to a sidenote.
In Tom’s later conversation with Hazeline, her response to his questions about foxes highlights the difference between rural and urban ethics regarding wildlife. Hazeline’s gut reaction to hearing about wildlife around a farm is practical; she assumes that Tom will want to hunt the fox since foxes are predators and will kill the chickens. Tom, on the other hand, does not worry about the chickens and simply wants to keep seeing the beautiful fox. Just as her attitude foreshadows the trouble that Tom will encounter when his aunt and uncle learn of the fox, his horror at Hazeline’s descriptions of killing foxes hints at his future resistance to such an endeavor. The contrast between the two characters’ mindsets also raises the ethical issue of protecting predatory wildlife, a quandary that the novel explores.
While the natural world plays the most prominent role in the novel, Byars also explores the issue of preconceptions that are based on superficial attributes. For example, Hazeline is upset because none of the models in the bridal magazine represent her larger body shape, and this prejudice is further explored in later chapters. Similarly, Tom harbors preconceptions about who can “fit in” to a rural lifestyle, and because he is small and skinny, he initially assumes that he will never be accepted on the farm. Tom believes that it is impossible to try to be something that he is not “cut out” for, and his attitude is underscored by his reaction to the book The Lamb Who Thought He Was a Cat (44). Tom expresses his dislike for books about “someone who was trying to be something he could never, ever be in his whole life” (44). Before going to Millie’s, Tom firmly believes that he could never enjoy being on a farm, but as his first encounter with the fox proves, that belief is already starting to change.
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By Betsy Byars
